BEATRICE – A popular spring event that allows Beatrice residents to discard large items at curbside, is moving to the fall, this year.
Beatrice City officials say a Beatrice Clean City large-item pick-up sweep, will be held October 4th through the 6th. It’s for residential properties that preregister their location with the city.

"If it was something we wanted to do, we wanted to push it off as far as we could to make certain that MARS was up and running and everything was going as smooth as possible, there. I don't like the idea of getting any later into the fall. We've all seen snows in October, so lets pull it back as far as we can. With the street department, that's a heavy construction time for us. We're trying to wrap up asphalt, we're finishing up concrete projects. It was just, let's pick our poison, and October 4th was the day."

Beatrice Street Superintendent Jason Moore says the start-up of the city-operated Midwest Area Refuse Solutions garbage hauling service made it difficult to conduct a spring campaign this year. The new hauling service began in April.

City officials have been mulling options for the annual large-item pick-up campaign. In 2020, the event had to be delayed in the spring because of coronavirus pandemic concerns. Moore said that campaign, however, went smoothly because street truck and loader operators started using technology to track picked-up locations.

"In the past we all had a paper card, and everyone who had registered would have a card and their information on it. Now, we have IPads in the loaders. I can see where they are at, and where they've been."

The system also shows locations where prohibited items were left at curbside and could not be picked up.

Moore says the registration system for the pickup remains the same….a three-day schedule of pick-up, with an additional day to mop-up missed locations. During the sweep, a large roll-off dumpster will be located at 1st and Ella, where people can discard old mattresses and box springs.

Beatrice residents can preregister through the City of Beatrice website. There is information on which neighborhoods will be covered, during the October 4th to the 6th event.

Go to:
beatrice.ne.gov… and click on Clean City Event, at the top of the page.