Episode Transcript
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Music.
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Welcome to another edition of Henry's Dashboard Dialogues. This is the program
we talk about all things Glasgow, whether it's something that needs to be talked
about, something that needs to be done about, maybe just something that you'd
like to learn more about.
That's kind of what we do here on the Dashboard Dialogues. Today,
on the topic of driving around town and looking at the beauty of our town through
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our dashboard, we're going to talk about Cleanup Week.
And the person who knows about Cleanup Week, Wes Billingsley.
Wes is the superintendent for the City of Glasgow Street Department over at
the Department of Public Works.
Wes is a veteran working with the City of Glasgow.
And we have a beautiful city. And we're starting to see blossoming of the trees
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and flower beds coming alive.
And it's just the best time in the world to clean up the junk that you might
have that doesn't need to be out in your yard.
Clean up the junk that makes it hard for you to get out of your garage.
And the city of Glasgow is providing this absolutely free cleanup week for all of the residents.
It is facilitated by the street department that takes these items up and picks
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them up and gets them to the landfill so we can beautify the streetscape here in Glasgow.
Since the Dashboard Dialogue podcast is involved in giving us a little more
time to talk about things, Wes, I want to use your expertise to share some of the things.
Now, first of all, The date of the pickup is going to be from March 25th to 29th. All right.
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March 29th. The goal is to be out on your regular garbage day.
If the volume's really high, we might be a little behind for a few days,
but we tend to get caught up.
I'm going to give you a testimony on that. You can't predict how much stuff
people's going to put out, so if it takes you an extra day or two,
you're still going to get there.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. If you put it out and it is in the accepted list of items
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that we take, we'll be through to pick it up.
Well, let's talk about accepted list of items. I would like to paint a big picture
right here, Wes, of what all that the city takes.
Sometimes we tend to focus on the things we don't want to take,
but my goodness, compared to the stuff that we will take, it's unbelievable.
Let's say you've got that couch that you don't know what to do with,
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but you're going to replace it.
Yes, sir. Put that couch out there, and guess who's going to come get it?
The street department will be by to pick it up. The Glasgow Street Department
will come by and get that couch and take it off of your hands.
The same thing for that big old recliner that is whopper-chopped that you just
need to get rid of it. What are we going to do with it?
We're going to put it out in the front yard, and who's going to come get it?
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The street department will be there. It's going to be during that week,
and if everybody takes advantage of this, and it takes a little bit longer into
the next week, do not fear. year. The street department is going to be good
about getting all that sort of stuff picked up.
Talk about your guys that do this. Don't they look forward to this every year, Wes?
They look forward to every day down there, I believe. We've got a pretty good group of guys.
Most of them don't like doing the same thing for two or three days in a row. Yeah.
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Well, I think this will be an adventure to see what all gets put out. Yes, sir.
They, sure enough, they like going through to see what everybody's throwing away. Yeah.
I don't get it. I mean, there's nothing. Well, I mean, you've got to be truthful about it. That's right.
We've got the couch out by the road, and we've got the rocker recliner by the road.
Let's say that set of dishware that has been in your cabinet way too long,
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you can put that in a box? Yes, sir.
We do ask that all the smaller loose items be bagged or boxed. Okay.
Loose items, small loose items will not be picked up.
That's probably one of the ways y'all fall behind is that people don't make
it as convenient as they really should for you to pick all these things up.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. If you're going to have small items, it helps this process move a lot more swiftly.
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As long as everything is bagged, boxed, we can come by and pick up the large
items. And I'm calling a large item anything as big as a full trash bag.
Okay. I mean, that is. Yeah, that makes sense. Let's move to large items for
a minute. There are large items people might have in their home.
Let's say, for example, that old washing machine that doesn't work anymore.
You will not be picking that up on Thursday, but you can take it free of charge
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to the landfill any day of the week. Is that not correct?
That is correct. Any day of the week. All appliances are accepted at the landfill
at no charge any day of the week. and anything appliance-wise that holds Freon,
the Freon must be removed before dropping it off.
That'd be like a refrigerator or a freezer or air conditioner type thing, right? Yes, sir.
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They just ask that if you drop those off, you punch a hole in that tank and
make sure your Freon's all drained out. I can haul a lot of trash out by myself.
I can't haul a washing machine out by myself.
So really it's nicer that y'all will take it at the landfill free of charge.
The same person that's going to help me get it on the truck is going to help
me get it to the landfill. feel, that's another nice service for sure.
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Yes. So if you're cleaning out your garage, there are things in there that may be like,
Old toys, old camping equipment, old basketballs that don't hold air anymore.
Yes, sir. All of those things will be accepted on cleanup week.
Just go in there and say, I don't need that. It's not worth keeping.
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I'm just going to put it in my little box I'm going to take out there by the
road, and the street department's going to come and pick it up.
Now, that doesn't work for everything.
We want to be real specific, and this is going to be the Wes Billingsley quiz show here.
I'm going to put you on the stand and ask a few questions right here,
and you give me like a yes or a no, okay?
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Yes, sir. Okay, Wesley, I've been painting an old car with a bunch of spray paint, and I'm done.
Can I put my big cans of spray paint out there by the road in a box? No, sir. Okay.
That's spray paint because it's liquid. Yes, sir. And I just can't put that
in a box and put it out there.
Yes. Let's say that I've got a bunch of gallons of paint in there in my house
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from when I remodeled all these years ago.
Can I put these gallons of paint in a box out by the road for you all to pick up?
If they have liquid paint in them, no.
If you've emptied the cans and you've put dirt or kitty litter or some way to
dry everything up and it's just an empty can, then yes. Yes.
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Any paints, chemicals, and batteries. Mm-hmm.
I tend to tell everybody to keep holding on to them.
And we have a household hazardous waste every year, once a year.
Okay. And they will take batteries.
They will take paints. They will take your chemicals.
And they will take appliances if you have them at that time.
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But it is free, just like the cleanup week.
But you will have to take them to household hazardous waste on 8-24-24.
And that will be at Beaver Trail Park. What do you think are things that people
don't think about when they're looking through their junk piles that it's okay
to put into the piles by the street?
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I can go through the list here of the unacceptable items, the stuff that we
won't take, and just try to make that a little easier for people to understand
what we will and what we won't.
One of the ones that paints a broad picture is the no construction debris.
Talk about that. Well, no construction materials, debris, the safety hazard,
the risk of everybody handling it.
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Most people that do demo work, they're two befores. Everything's still got nails
and screws in it. It's just real easy to get hurt.
Broken glass. Broken glass, shingles, concrete.
Those are all like concrete slabs that's been busted up. Those are all things that we don't take.
Those aluminum gutters can have some pretty sharp edges on them too.
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And then you've got the metal-sided buildings.
People tore them down.
That is all stuff that we do not take. Anything liquids, we do not pick up liquids.
Pesticides, herbicides, auto batteries, auto parts, tires.
Tires we do not take at the landfill either, ever.
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It's something that the city of Glasgow does not take.
Asbestos, we don't pick up asbestos. and either whole trees or large tree limbs,
we don't take those during cleanup week.
People kind of take advantage of that, and then they want to say,
well, you know, I've got this whole tree that's fell over.
Let's see if we can tie the truck to it and drag it out here to the road.
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Maybe they'll come pick it up.
I think that's probably a bad bet, isn't it? Yeah, that's just not something we do.
If people collect junk like I do, I'm not going to have any trouble filling
up the curbside in front of my house with stuff that is allowed to be taken.
Yes, sir. The purpose of this conversation is to make sure that people know it's happening.
And to know that there are restrictions, but not that many restrictions,
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based on what you can set out and have the city come pick up.
It'll help beautify your house, your neighborhood.
It'll help get rid of stuff you've been stumbling over in the garage or out
back, those kind of things.
It's a really nice way to kind of get some stuff taken care of.
We tend to ask people not to put items under trees, under or close nearby utility poles.
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And don't put them on a trailer and then just drive the trailer out there and
want us to get it off of it okay just set it out by the curb by the sidewalk
and when we get by to pick it up we.
Tend to try to be there on your regular garbage day and if you put it in some
sort of box container the container is going with it it's it's not that we're
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going to pick it up and dump it out and and leave your container, it will go with it.
If resident decides, hey, you know, I've got this stuff loaded up.
I'm just going to take it to the landfill.
You will be charged a fee for taking it to the landfill.
Okay. This is just a cleanup way to set everything out, and we will come get
it. If we have any questions.
The street department phone number is 270-651-5977.
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Well, Wes Billingsley, we appreciate you being here, and we really appreciate
you and your staff saying, Let's beautify this place around here during this citywide cleanup.
Let's see if we can break some records. You want to? Well, there's been a lot
of tonnage turned in in years past.
I don't know if we'll break any records, but we'll sure enough try to clean
everything up and make it look better.
Okay. Well, thanks for joining us today, and thank you for tuning in to another
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edition of Henry's Dashboard Dialogues.
As we look out across the dashboard, we're going to see a prettier community,
Thanks to the efforts of the street department and of the residents to clean up the place we call.
Music.