Takshanuk Watershed Council collected 77 bags of garbage as the top nonprofit organization during the April 29-May 9 Community Pride Week.
The Haines Chamber of Commerce coordinated the event with the Haines Borough, Acme Transfer, Haines Sanitation and Haines Friends of Recycling.
This year’s cleanup totaled 249 bags, topping last year’s haul of 229 bags.
Nonprofit organizations earned $3 per filled bag, with additional prizes of $150, $100 and $75 for the top three groups.
Friends of the Haines Borough Public Library, 35 bags, and Chilkat Valley Community Foundation, 15 bags, followed Takshanuk Watershed Council in the overall tally.
Individuals credited their bags to a group or toward their own dump pass. They separated items into blue bags for recyclables and yellow bags for non-recyclables. Yellow bags made up two-thirds of the overall total.
Staffer Julia Scott of Takshanuk Watershed Council coordinated the organization’s Chilkat River Cleanup that drew more than 20 volunteers earlier this month.
Initial results listed Scott as the “Queen of Trash” as the top female garbage collector, but Scott said Takshanuk’s success from the Chilkat River Cleanup was “a town effort” and she thinks the title should end up going to someone else.
“Everyone helped clean up that much trash,” she said.
Chamber manager Joan Carlson said resident Jerry Blood is this year’s “King of Trash,” on behalf of Friends of the Haines Borough Public Library. Blood could not be reached for comment this week.
The top individuals will receive a $25 gift certificate to a Haines restaurant of their choice, along with a dump pass.
Carlson also credited residents Tom and Connie Ward for their work at 7 Mile Haines Highway.
“There was tons and tons of trash out there,” Carlson said.
Connie Ward thanked Matt Boron of the state Department of Transportation for helping haul away some of the trash.
“That was (Bureau of Land Management) land and he had no jurisdiction there, so we had to move it close to the road, where he could get it,” she said.
Ward said a few hours of work cleared out “a good dump truck load of stuff,” including a refrigerator and freezer.
“We burnt all the material that we could there, like all the cardboard and the dressers or whatever was around, and we stacked the rest of it near the roadway and picked up all the cans, whatever we could,” she said.