newsminer.com

Cleanup Week combines an opportunity for financial gain with natural resource development, two of the old standbys in Alaska.

While picking up trash, separate the cans from the rest of the collectibles. This will keep the cans out of the landfill and allow you to earn some cash in the process for yourself or others.

K & K Recycling on the Old Richardson Highway, between Fairbanks and North Pole, and C & R Pipe and Steel on Van Horn Road off South Cushman recycle aluminum for 45 cents a pound.

Joy Elementary School is one of the local schools with a can-collection effort. Cans can be dropped off at the school. The money supports reading instruction.

There are 32 cans in a pound and thousands of cans littering the roadsides.

If you find any significant quantities of copper, that metal can be recycled for up to $1.25 or $1.50 a pound, depending on its condition.

While you are out mining for cans, don’t forget the bottles, cigarette packs and fast food containers, though those don’t have much of a resale value.

The EPA notes that 40 percent of the average can is recycled aluminum and that recycling saves 95 percent of the energy needed to make fresh aluminum from bauxite ore.

If you can collect 100 cans, you deserve an aluminum star.

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PICK IT UP: There are many areas where people have yet to volunteer to pick up trash Saturday.

Among the spots with the greatest need are Chena Hot Springs Road, Badger Road, Goldstream Road, Sheep Creek Road, Steese Expressway, Ballaine Road, subdivisions off Farmers Loop and subdivisions off the Parks Highway.

Bags are available at the United Way office at 565 University Ave. or at most of the fire stations outside the city, as well as at the Fox General Store and the Pleasant Valley store in Two Rivers.

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PAINT BY SIMON: Simon Evans plans to give another presentation in Fairbanks on special techniques for custom painting autos. Call Tracy or Peter of Carquest at 452-1627 for details on the class, which is from 6-10 p.m. next Wednesday.

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SUPER VOTERS: The League of Women Voters is holding its annual meeting Saturday from 10 a.m.-noon at the Carpenters Hall at 25 Timberland Drive, which is off the Old Steese behind the Girl Scout office.

Borough Clerk Mona Lisa Drexler will be the guest speaker at 10:30 a.m., discussing recent ethics legislation and what it means to our local government and candidates.

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SIGN OF THE TIME: At least one local water company is slapping a fuel surcharge on local deliveries, pushing up the price per gallon.

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FUEL COSTS: Regular gasoline is now more than $4 per gallon at some stations and heating oil prices have also broken the $4 barrier.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but we should have built the Susitna hydroelectric project a generation ago instead of abandoning the idea when oil prices collapsed in the mid-1980s.

If the state starts now, the project might be operating in a decade or so.

For the shorter term, the Healy experimental coal project should be placed online as soon as possible, which means the state and GVEA need to settle their dispute.

In Southcentral Alaska, shortages are on the horizon because of dwindling Cook Inlet supplies, but natural gas is priced at the equivalent of about $1.15 per gallon.

That means we are now paying 3.5 times more to heat homes with oil, compared to the natural gas in Southcentral.

For electricity, a residential user of GVEA pays $135 for 700 kilowatt hours, while Chugach Electric Association customers in Anchorage pay $97 for the same amount. The charge for Chugach members will drop to $94 in June.

Again, the fuel source is the big reason for the difference. GVEA is paying for oil at close to the world price for its North Pole generators that supply about 40 percent of its energy, burning 3,500 gallons an hour.

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FOOD DRIVE: The annual food drive by the mail carriers and Alyeska to boost the Fairbanks Community Food Bank is Saturday. Put a can of food in your mailbox or drop it by a local post office.

The supply of donated food is low and the demand for the food bank services is high.

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PORK CITY: The Anchorage Daily News editorial page began what it says will be a daily feature highlighting “curious” pork barrel items for the governor to veto.

The paper began Thursday by taking issue with the $245,000 set aside for the Tanana Valley Sportsmen’s Association clubhouse and shooting range.

The Anchorage paper says this is close to “wild boar” status on the pork-o-meter.

I’d say it’s closer to Canadian bacon myself, but then again, it’s easier to identify prime pork from a distance.

In that regard, the pork-o-meter should be dialed up to No. 11 for all sorts of earmarks stuffed into the budget.

One of them is $1,500 for “any materials or services needed” to pick up trash as part of the Mountain View spring cleanup campaign in Anchorage.

Before asking for state funding, they should collect the aluminum cans.