Social media, old fashioned letters to the editor and comments by elected officials have all noted the increase in the litter along the streets and highways.
Some people even blamed the pandemic, theorizing that with restaurants closed for months and then operating at reduced capacity, many more people were ordering take out and evidently dumping the take out containers out the car window when they were through.
Others speculated that with more people at home all day and taking more walks around the neighborhood, they noticed litter that they wouldn’t have seen driving to work, especially if they ended up coming home after dark.
At the Greensboro Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (GUAMPO) board meeting last week, board member Mike Fox provided some good news about litter and some facts.
GUAMPO has an advantage over other metropolitan planning organizations in the state because Fox, who is an attorney with Tuggle Duggins in Greensboro, is also the chairman of the North Carolina Board of Transportation.
At the GUAMPO meeting, Fox, in his report on what the state board was doing, included that because of financial difficulties at the North Carolina Department of Transportation, the litter cleanup program had been cut.
He said, “A lot of areas around the state had suffered from our lack of funding to clean up the roadsides.”
But he said at the most recent NC Board of Transportation meeting, with the financial situation now on better terms, $30 million had been specifically allocated for the statewide litter program, and he said, “It’s already taking place but you’ll see a lot more focus on that going forward.”
Cutting the funding for the statewide litter program explains why people have been seeing more litter along the highways and also that it has nothing to do with the pandemic, because NCDOT’s financial difficulties became evident back when nobody had ever heard the term COVID-19.
So that part of the puzzle is solved. If you don’t have people picking up litter, you have more trash along the roads. But it doesn’t explain all the other complaints about litter on city streets.
If we were to follow Singapore’s model on litter enforcement, there wouldn’t be nearly as much, if any, trash on the ground.
Well said! We need real consequences for crimes. Our current pansy butt methods obviously aren’t working.
I was shocked when I moved here and saw the amount of litter on the roadways. I grew up in New England we learned how to read from the road signs LOL $1,500 fine or prison or both. The amount of litter is nothing in comparison to North Carolina. Start fining them and you’ll have more money I know you need people to fine them. And on it goes.
The litter belongs to the clods who do it. Prison labor can be used for de-littering.
That , doesn’t answer ” why these jerks throw trash out the windows ” on public streets and road ways. We all know the state can’t stop it , it takes people who give a rats butt to keep our streets clean.
The state could give a financial incentive to pick up trash in some areas .
The perfect solution to the litter problem is to use those people incarcerated at minimum security facilities throughout the state to pick up the trash. Instead of giving them cable TV, weight rooms and basketball courts, let them do something positive as restitution for their crimes. I would even go so far as to say that for every 30 days they agree to work in this program, they get a certain number of days reduced from their sentence. What an incentive. Plus it certainly could not cost the taxpayer 30 million dollars.
Littering is not often a passive or casual act of ignorance or laziness. Frequently, it is the active attempt by many idiots to just give the rest of us the collective “finger”. Just as in the case of vandalism, these louts have no other, nor any positive, means to make their “statement” about life. You know, that they are somehow “owed” that privilege. The penalty for littering should be having to pick up trash, under armed guard, 100 times the amount you threw out. Repeat offenders should serve time. There is no excuse for littering and it should not be tolerated by society or law enforcement by the taxpayer having to pay to have it continually removed from the roadside, or other public or private property. What I also don’t understand is the casual attitude of city and county officials who just accept the situation as a seeming “act of god”. I can show you two or three locations on JFH Dairy Road where people repeatedly dump out truck and trailer loads of brush and other refuse on a wholesale basis, over and over and over, week after week after week. You can’t tell me that officials are powerless to put a stop to this. I guess the labor costs to remove it justifies more government. Of course, it doesn’t help that Greensboro and Guilford County are so obnoxiously resistant, costly, and complicated in providing what little public dump facilities as they do, leaving few options to get rid of trash. Just like the White Street Landfill closure, which was totally political. It was estimated that it could remain viable for 50 to 100 more years when they closed it. Now we truck our garbage over 100 miles roundtrip by an entire FLEET of trucks owned by some lucky concessionaire whom we pay to haul it, not to mention the dumping costs at the destination. On top of that, not only are we paying to haul it and paying to dump it, we are GIVING AWAY our garbage, which in the future could be mined to recover valuable matter. Just because it’s now out of your car, or off your trailer or truck, or out of your house or yard, doesn’t mean that it has been legally or efficiently removed from the planet.
Agree
I don’t see anything in this story that is not pandemic-related. Isn’t the lack of funding for litter pickup pandemic related? That said, people littered before the pandemic and will continue to do so after it’s over until there are some real consequences. Being sentenced to spend an hour picking the stuff up seems a good place to start.
As stated in the article, NCDOT’s financial problems came long before the pandemic and were caused by mismanagement. In the article it states, “back when nobody had ever heard the term COVID-19.” The writer thought that was a clever way to say before the pandemic, but perhaps it was too clever.
You are spot on!
What ever happen to the people in jail cleaning the roads,Also why do we have so many people begging for money on the side of the streets and as you go into stores there are people begging there needs to be a law enforcement against this .
I want to give to the poor but don’t want to encourage begging at every intersection!
I remember as a youngster that the prison for minimum security prisoner’s would bring out 10-12 prisoners with one guard who had a rifle and a pistol.I never heard of a break from these groups and I never heard that the guard had killed anyone .These guys did the road cleanup you are speaking of .Why aren’t the city council members clamoring after this one .They could control much more of the city they don’t control.As an example:after the tea party in America had their meeting in a park in Washington,the park police said there was no need to cleanup after them the park was clean and could be used immediately.When the million man March was held at the same park,The park had to hire a cleanup crew to come in and do a thorough cleanup before it was deemed usable.Tea party was Republican and I will assume that the million man March was Democrats!!!!!! There have been other groups that have used park and have been trashed and nasty.Our society has taught our young people that they can do as they want with no repercussions and don’t worry over finances we’ll look after you.This came from the higher ups in the Democratic Party.ARE YOU MISSING TRUMP YET?????Ha-Ha.Have you bought gas yet????Thanks to sleepy Joe.Whose in charge of the US??? Maybe Cam Alaa.!!!!!