After a period of intense wind gusts sent trash from an Outagamie landfill into local neighborhoods, crews spent much of Thursday picking up all of the debris. The clean-up efforts are expected to cost anywhere from $5,000 to $7,000, which will come out of the county’s Recycling and Solid Waste budget.
Friday crews focused their efforts cleaning up the assorted plastic bags out of the surrounding trees. Officials hope to have the trash cleaned up by the weekend.
Despite the mess that’s resulted from the strong winds, Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson says he doesn’t believe anything needs to be added to prevent materials from escaping the landfill in the future.
Already they use portable wind screens reaching 15 feet, as well as a 20 foot litter fence around the active landfill. Officials believe that most of the trash that escaped the perimeter is made of stretchy plastic, such as plastic shopping bags.
The county is asking for the public’s help to keep that type of material from the landfill anyway, which can be recycled at supermarkets or other big box locations.