State grants help county in fight against litter
|
It’s no different here in Warren County, where local officials say they are fighting an uphill battle to keep the county clean. County Executive Kenneth Rogers said one of the things that bothers him is that litter hurts the county’s image and it could easily be avoided.
“Food bags, beer cans, drink bottles, instead of just leaving it in the car until they get home and cleaning it out, they just toss it,” Rogers said. “And people driving through here, they see that. That’s the first thing they see is how messy our roads are. We need to try to keep Warren County beautiful.”
The state does offer help to local governments through litter grants. County employee Mary Lou Ward handles the grants locally.
“Every year we get a litter grant,” Ward said. “The amount depends on what the state will give us. This year we had $41,187 for 2002-2003.”
Ward said much of that is used to fund litter removal around the county, noting that prisoner labor is utilized to make that money go as far it can. But even those efforts seem to have little effect on the proliferation of litter, Ward said.
“I live off Short Mountain Road,” she said, “and they can pick up one day, and the next day I go home and it’s full again. It’s just people.”
Ward says one of the most important aspects of litter control is changing people’s attitudes, and that takes education.
“Education is supposed to be a big part of it,” she said
As a result, the county sponsors several events geared toward raising awareness of litter control and proper disposal of waste.
“We have our Household Hazardous Waste drive every year,” she said. “That is for your pesticides and materials you can’t just dump. We have our litter booth at the fair, we do that every year. We have beautification months. That’s usually April and May we do that.”
Local schools are invited to participate in programs, but Ward said recent participation has been disappointing.
“We invited 11 schools this year and only six agreed to do it,” she said, adding that each participating school received $200 toward its beautification project.
Even so, Ward said some schools go the extra mile.
“Boyd Christian does a lot of recycling, collecting newspapers. And there’s a lot of can drives going on, like at West Elementary, and a lot of the schools have can drives.”
Ward also pointed out there are programs available to schools or organizations who are interested in learning more about how to control litter and waste disposal in general.
One such program is Solid Waste Education Program for Teachers and Adult Leaders, or SWEPT, which is part of MTSU’s Center for Environmental Education. For more information, contact Pandy English at (615) 904-8574.