Pictured above: Volunteers at Gifft Hill Dumpster site cleaning up on Saturday, June 25. St. John Tradewinds News Photos by Cherie Mulder.
Not everyone watches the dumpster for a hobby, but Cherie Mulder has observed dumpster behavior while working to clean up four different dumpster sites over the past three weeks.
“Unlike popular belief, only a small percentage of the strewn garbage is caused by the chickens and donkeys. Most is the result of improper human disposal of garbage,” said Cherie. “People need to put garbage in bags, tie the bags securely and break down boxes to reduce their volume by 99 percent.”
On Saturday, June 25, Cherie and other volunteers including Suki Buchalter, Linda Sorensen, Allen Glenn and Lucy Portlock, spent six hours filling twenty-nine large bags with garbage from the ground and the bush surrounding the Gifft Hill dumpster site.
As a community service, Mulder hired Joseph Christian and Terry Thomas with JLC Maintenance to haul away trash from four different dumpsters site over the last three weeks. All together they carted away 15 refrigerators and at least 10 large appliances, including stoves, dryers and microwaves, totaling nine full truck loads of garbage and construction waste.
People falsely believe that the Susannaberg Transfer Station is charging to dispose of those types of large items. “This is not true,” says Cherie.
JLC Maintenance will pick up and dispose of any large appliance for $20 each. “There is no longer a need to discard of large items at the dumpster for others to deal with,” said Cherie. Christian can be contacted by phone at 340-227-5924.
“Let’s work together to take care of the serious trash situation we have on St. John.” The Susannaberg Transfer Station is open Monday through Friday from 9:00am to 4:00pm and on Saturdays from 9:00am to 12:00pm.
