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Cedar Park's clean up cleans up big

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The city of Cedar Park held its second Keen on Clean Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) Cleanup Event on Saturday, May 31 at Austin Community College on Cypress Creek Road. This was a hugely successful event that facilitated residents in and around Cedar Park to properly get rid of all types of waste. There were over 1,328 vehicles in the community that were able to discard of 125 batteries, 500 gallons of waste oil, 56 gallons of waste antifreeze, 1,960 cubic yards of brush, 1,000 tires, an estimated 62 tons of general trash, 37 tons of HHW and the disposal of confidential material.

This event was made possible through a grant from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) submitted by Yvonne Lane, city of Cedar Park grant coordinator. These cleanup events are expensive because a hazardous waste contractor has to be utilized to properly dispose of various types of products such as insecticides, oil-based paints, solvents, and other hazardous products accumulating in residents' homes. On average, it costs the city $74 per car for this event so grant funding and sponsorships are extremely important. Sponsors such as Red River Waste Disposal, Goodwill Industries, Hudgins Co., Central Texas Secure Shredding, Hill Country News, Texas Disposal Systems, Austin Wood Recycling, Firehouse Subs, and Firestone on RR 1431 were able to help recycle various types of waste to reduce impact to the environment.

This event was a complicated one, as numerous sponsors had to be involved in the disposal of all types of waste and other items being used to help various non-profit agencies. For example, Goodwill Industries received three 48-foot trucks of donated items that they will now offer through their organization to less fortunate members of our community. AT&T's “Cell Phones for Soldiers” program collected 201 cell phones that will be recycled and provide calling cards to soldiers serving oversea. With the use of the LCRA Paint Recycling Trailer, the Keen on Clean Program was able to recycle 77, 5-gallon pails of clean reusable paint. This paint is free to anyone interested. Just call city hall to inquire about pick-up. Vendors such as Texas Disposal System's Gardenville and Classic Honda added educational components about reusing, reducing, and recycling for a cleaner environment.

Coordinators of this event spent months getting a hazardous waste contractor, finding sponsors to donate their services, and coordinating various city departments to meet the community need of collecting this waste. The planning committee was comprised of Project Coordinator Yvonne Lane, Utility Billing Supervisor Nanette Chanek, Fire Chief Chris Connealy, Fire Marshal Bruce Herms, Senior Code Enforcement Officer Audrey Anorld, Code Enforcement Officer Chris Walts, and other various city staff members. The Cedar Park Field Operations and Cedar Park Police departments also provided needed support to help address traffic control at the event. The 180 volunteers, including the Cedar Park Fire Department, Rancho Bells-Red Hatters of Cedar Park, Cedar Park Community Emergency Response Team, Community Impact Ministry of Hill Country Bible Church NW, and numerous other citizen volunteers, worked hard through their volunteer efforts to make this event a success. City officials had special thanks to Phillip and Priscilla Mendoza, owners of Chick-fil-A, for providing the Cow Mascot who helped entertain the citizens and donated sandwiches to help feed the volunteers as they worked through the event.

Residents started lining up to dispose of their waste at 8:30 a.m. They were routed to various stations in the ACC parking lot to dispose of their waste. Due to the high volume of traffic, the average wait for a vehicle to make two stops at each of the 10 different collection stations was around 40 minutes. The last car entered the ACC parking lot at 2 p.m. and the final vehicle with waste left the last disposal station at 2:15 p.m. Organizers did not finish packaging and transporting the waste until after 5 p.m.

“The overwhelming success of this event demonstrates the need to make this at least an annual event, if funding can be identified through various sources,” said a city spokesperson. The Cedar Park City Council will be given a report of this event at the next council meeting along with recommendations from staff on how to continue this program and make further improvements. CAPCOG representatives stated that the Keen on Clean Citywide Cleanup event will be used as a catalyst to support the need of funding to continue efforts of HHW cleanup events.

The city of Cedar Park's Keen on Clean Program participates in the Keep Texas Beautiful campaign and was awarded “gold star” status on April 15, 2008. Keen on Clean has introduced many community programs that focus on beautification of public places and on environmental education programs. The Keen on Clean program has helped build a compost garden for Henry Middle School, landscaping for Veteran's Memorial Park, renovated homes for deserving families, and other land improvement projects that were accomplished by the program's success. If your organization is interested in volunteering or sponsoring a Keen on Clean Program, please email keenon clean@cedarparktx.us

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