The Town of Jasper is hoping last week’s two days of Take It or Leave It event, followed by two days of municipal curbside pickup will help reduce the number of items that are ending up in the landfill and help put an end to midnight drop offs at dumpsters in town.

The town has run curbside pickups and their Take It or Leave It program before, but not in consecutive days, which they hoped made it easier for residents. This year, residents could simply leave the items that people didn’t take for municipal workers to pick up the following day, rather than bringing it inside again and eventually taking it to the dump.

“In the past we’ve been pretty generous about picking everything up, because we want the town to be clean. We don’t want people leaving stuff piled up in the alleys. That’s been the purpose of it, but it’s kind of morphed into a huge general pickup for everyone who hasn’t been taking stuff out themselves to the transfer station. But it’s totally to our advantage because offering a service like this, we minimize all the midnight dumping at garbage bins, which is a huge problem in town,” said Janet Cooper, Environmental Stewardship Coordinator for the Town of Jasper.

Also different this year was the process municipal workers picked up the items. Rather than throwing everything in the pit as they did in the past, items were picked up in separate loads, so clean wood piles could be created, separate loads for batteries, etc.

Cooper said the town plans to start to run this program regularly, so residents can come to expect it, with the next one aimed to be at the end of August, when many seasonal workers leave town. That is often  the time when the town has the biggest problems with dumping.

“To be fair, a lot of people don’t have trucks to get it out to the transfer station, and it’s one of the things that we’re thinking of; setting up some kind of service where you have an alternative to midnight dumping,” she said.

Another environmental event coming up is the Enviro Fair, which will happen on June 5.

Cooper says she encourages any group to set up a booth at the fair. Many businesses and hotels will put up booths to showcase what they have been doing as far as green initiatives within their business.

Booths are free, but it is necessary to confirm before hand, which can be done by contacting Janet Cooper at 780-852-1563.