Alaska News

On Anchorage's free dump day, cathartic spring cleaning at no cost

Bernie Droege makes Free Dump Day an annual tradition -- not to haul away his extra trash but an easy way to save the $40 or so he would pay to take his load to the dump each month.

But as he stood in the back of a trailer attached to his car Saturday, he was doing more than just casually tossing black trash bags onto the growing pile of waste. He was opening each one and searching for a pair of ripped jeans.

"I left something valuable in them," he said as his trailer quickly emptied with the help of his 5-year-old son, Christopher, who helped with smaller pieces of trash, like a chewed-up baseball he chucked across the pile of tattered mattresses, dried-out tree branches and banged-up barbecue grills.

"Found it!" Droege said as he dug furiously into the small pocket on the pair of tattered blue jeans. It was there, standing in the dump, surrounded by others tossing their garbage, that the 54-year-old Anchorage resident proudly held up a small gold wedding band he'd just recovered.

"I've only had it 18 years," he said after he finished unloading the rest of his garbage, safely tucking it back into the pockets of his unripped jeans. "If I get rid of it, my life is in jeopardy."

While Droege was being careful not to throw something away -- an accident he attributed to leaving the ring in the pocket of torn jeans his wife threw out unknowingly -- he fit in well with the thousands of other people who made their way to the Anchorage Regional Landfill, just outside Eagle River, to take advantage of the city's free dump day.

Now in its 46th year, the day marks one of two days each year when people can drop off up to 1,000 pounds of waste. It's part of the municipality's annual Anchorage Chamber Citywide Cleanup, but also a good chance to just foster goodwill about the landfill, according to Solid Waste Services Director Paul Alcantar.

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For example, instead of dropping garbage off at the platform where trash is usually collected, visitors get to drive down deep into the landfill's "active face" to deposit their waste, where they get a winding tour of the site in the process.

Last year, 5,350 vehicles went through the municipality's three open transfer sites -- including the central transfer station in Anchorage and another in Girdwood. In total, about 1,235 tons of trash was collected during the week. But on free dump day -- Saturday and May 9 -- only the Girdwood transfer station and Anchorage Regional Landfill outside of Eagle River are open for trash drop offs.

Solid Waste Services customer service division manager Birgitte Kyttle said generally the loads on free dump day are larger than normal and that's OK. She said even uncovered loads that normally would be subject to an additional fee are waived. Instead, they just work to educate people for the next time they visit.

"It keeps us from having to pick it up at our cost when it ends up in an alley or on the side of the road," she said.

By noon Saturday, over 1,000 vehicles had made their way through the landfill, mostly pickup trucks with full loads covered with plastic tarps. With warm, sunny weather in Anchorage, Alcantar said the landfill would probably see close to 2,500 cars in just one day -- a little higher than most years.

Those cars unloaded everything from wood and worn carpeting from home remodeling projects to old printers and small plastic basketball hoops. Many dumped bags of leaves and other lawn debris they'd collected after the snow melted. Others just brought their regular trash, mixed in with maybe a bag or two of spring cleaning.

Alcantar said he's seen a variety of surprising objects at free dump day each year -- furniture, antiques, old cameras, animal parts.

"Stuff people don't know what to do with," he said.

Landfill working foreman Glen Haasl said one year someone brought in a fully mounted six-and-a-half-foot grizzly bear. Haasl said the bear, which was mounted standing on its hind legs with its arms outstretched, came from a new taxidermist who used the animal for practice. He said the hide was in bad shape and the taxidermist didn't know what else to do with it.

So work crews adopted it as the site's unofficial mascot, Haasl said, and it overlooked some of the landfill's open areas for years until it finally deteriorated.

Travis Dostal moved to a new home in Wasilla last fall. As part of the moving process, he found himself saddled with "just junk" -- an old mattress, cardboard boxes, some wood -- he held onto all winter just to take it to the free dump day. He estimated he probably unloaded about 600 pounds of waste Saturday.

Dostal, 25, said he's not a scavenger, but couldn't help but marvel at all things people were throwing away. Everything from old suitcases to exercise equipment and old water heaters.

Alas, scavenging is not allowed, according to Alcantar. It's unsafe for people to rummage through the piles, which were littered with nails, metal and other hazardous materials. Anyone seen taking things away will be asked to put it back.

"There's so much stuff people could repurpose," Dostal noted. "But here one man's trash really is one man's trash."

Suzanna Caldwell

Suzanna Caldwell is a former reporter for Alaska Dispatch News and Alaska Dispatch. She left the ADN in 2017.

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