SPRING CLEANUP BRINGS OUT TRASH HUNTERS

Most come under cover of night, with headlights shining on the heaps of trash along Cape Girardeau's streets. Many of the scavengers who were out late Monday night didn't really want anyone to know their identities.

They preferred to remain anonymous. After all, would you really want someone to know you were digging through his trash?

City ordinances do prohibit pilfering although it seems to be a tradition during spring curbside cleanup.

All this week, city residents will take part in spring cleanup.

Normally, residents have a two-container limit on trash, but this week there is no limit on the amount of trash residents can place at the curb.

Bulk items like discarded furniture, old appliances, compost and extra containers of trash are picked up by work crews.

Of course, that's if the crews get to it before the scavengers. One city worker said he'd seen people taking items from backhoes while crews were picking up the trash to dump it into a truck.

Jim Tatum didn't seem to mind people digging through his trash along Steven Drive at nearly midnight Monday.

He even had people helping him carry the items to the curbside so they could take it.

Tatum said it used to seem strange that people would go digging in trash piles, but "now they are everywhere."

Pam Sander, solid-waste coordinator, agreed. Pilfering through trash, though it is against city ordinance, is a time-honored tradition.

"There's nothing we can do to prevent it," she said. The cleanup week is too big for that.

Unless it creates a nuisance or litter, there aren't many complaints about pilfering. "It's not odd to us because they've just always done it," Sander said of the scavengers.

As Tatum carried an old sewing machine, entertainment center and three bicycles to his curbside, scavengers in a loaded-down minivan with ropes holding the back door closed, slowed as they drove past.

They stopped but soon discovered the items already had been claimed.

A twentysomething man stood guard over the entertainment center, sewing machine and padded footstool while his friend went to find a bigger vehicle to haul their new finds away.

"It's stuff you'd try to sell at a garage sale that nobody else wants," Tatum said after sweeping out his garage.

Most of Tatum's junk items were leftovers from a basement remodeling project.

"I wouldn't have any other way to get rid of it" or haul the trash away, if city crews didn't pick it up, he said.

And his trash is just a small amount when you consider city crews pick up more than 600 tons of extra trash during the spring cleanup week. During a normal week, they pick up 30 tons a day, which adds up to 500 tons a month.

Crews begin work at 6 a.m. and continue until dusk or 6 o'clock, whichever comes first, Sander said.

Because of the extra work, nearly every employee in the Public Works Department helps with the job. All the city's fleet of trucks, trailers, backhoes and dump trucks are used to clear away the debris.

After the trucks are used to pick up the trash, they take it to the city's transfer station. There the trucks, sometimes 11 deep in line, wait for a chance to dump their waste and head back to the street for more. Filled containers are then taken to a landfill near Dexter.

On a normal day, the trucks wouldn't even have to wait, but this week it takes about 30 minutes before they can unload at the dock.

The items being thrown away include everything from broken screen doors, drafting tables, rolls of carpet, broken children's toys and television sets.

Sometimes Rodney Baker is surprised at the items of "trash" that he hauls away, but co-worker Ron Hobeck said, "It's all strange."