College Area’s dumpster day

Last Saturday, as temperatures kept climbing, so did piles of trash!

Trust me, this was a good thing. On March 21, District 9 and Mesa Colony held their second annual “College Area Dumpster Day,” hoping to clear up unwanted household items and green waste before peak fire season — all while saving people an expensive (and smelly) trip to the dump.

With the help of the College Area Community Council, Fire Safe Council, Goodwill Industries, Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera and his team, the four-hour event wrapped with four nearly-full dumpsters.

From 8 a.m. to noon, community members dropped off junk furniture, electronic waste, mattresses, you name it. Some even brought their empty trucks to start a DIY junk collection service. One key feature of this year’s Dumpster Day was the addition of a green waste bin. 

“We’re trying to be fire-conscious in the area because a lot of the residences are on the finger canyons along Mission Valley,” said Sue Grant, who helped organize the event. “They need to clear around their homes so they’re not vulnerable because we’re in a high fire hazard zone. We realized that, and we just want to make something like that available for people who want to be proactive and start clearing out vegetation around their homes.”

This springtime Dumpster Day was just added last year, joining the one that the CAC holds every August before the university school year starts. In the future, Grant would love to see more SDSU student involvement and the introduction of more Dumpster Days to keep our neighborhoods squeaky clean.