By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
The City of Great Bend will hold a city-wide cleanup this fall for the third consecutive year, but this time the city will not accept tires. The nine-day cleanup will allow citizens to dump refuse, metal, mattresses, appliances and almost anything they are looking to ditch.
City Administrator Logan Burns said the cleanup will be Oct. 19 - Oct. 27.
"The cleanup will located and Sunflower Diversified Services at 5605 10th Street," said Burns. "We'll start working to get some publications out for that."
During the first year of the cleanup, Great Bend residents filled 51 commercial-sized dumpsters. Last year, the number grew to 76 dumpsters, with the majority of the items consisting of tires.
In 2022, Great Bend collected 75 tons of tires. That number jumped to 160 tons in 2023. The cost to properly dispose of tires went from $150 per ton the first year to $248 last year. With a tire disposal fee of nearly $40,000 last year, Great Bend received a $15,000 allocation from Barton County to offset the increased cost.
Again, this year’s city-wide cleanup will not allow the disposal of tires.