Spring is in the air, and for many that means time for springcleaning.

When it comes to difficult-to-dispose-of items, Keep Lincoln CountyBeautiful and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Qualityare helping out in a big way this year with a Household HazardousWaste Collection Day Saturday. It will be held from 8 a.m. untilnoon at the city dump on County Farm Road.

This year marks the first time in about a decade that LincolnCounty has been able to have a collection day for hazardous wasteitems, which are typically not accepted at the landfill.

At Saturday’s event, no commercial waste will be accepted. However,private citizens are encouraged to bring in materials like paint,oil, pesticide, vehicle fluids, cleaners, glue, polish, aerosols,batteries, tires and many other items for safe disposal.

The hazardous waste collection day will kick off KLCB’s GreatAmerican Cleanup. In the annual campaign, dumpsters are placedaround the county over several weekends for residents to use indisposing of items that could otherwise wind up in illegaldumps.

Dumpster dates and locations for this year’s event include:

April 7-11 – East Lincoln Community. Vacant Lot onMonticello Street and East County Farm Road.

April 14-18 – Brignall Community. Intersection ofHoward Road and Brignall Road

April 21-25 – Bogue Chitto Community. Vacant loton Highway 51 and Brister Street

April 28-May 2 – West Lincoln Community.Intersection of Jackson-Liberty Road and West Lincoln Road

May 5-9 – Loyd Star Community. Vacant lot at JamesCase’s Store on California Road

The Great American Cleanup represents an important campaign from acommunity appearance standpoint.

Clean communities are more attractive to visitors and potential newbusinesses and industries. Also, through the campaign, unsightlywaste items are disposed of properly and do not find their way toillegal dumps, which require unnecessary additional manpower andresources to clean up.