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Thursday, July 27, 2006
Let’s get the trash out of our county
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Let’s talk some trash.
Trash as in litter, garbage, waste.
You got eyes. You see it.
Campaign signs. Debris that’s fallen off transfer trucks. Bags of garbage that’s dumped on dead-end streets. Fast-food bags and wrappers that are tossed out car windows.
We got plenty of it.
But it may not be as egregious as you think.
Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful just conducted a litter survey. The Keep America Beautiful organization has designed a scientific way to assess and rate the amount of litter in a community. It’s called a “litter index,” and it goes from 1 to 4.
An index of 1 means there’s no litter; 2 acknowledges the presence of some litter; 3 means a community is slightly littered; and 4 means it’s awash in trash.
On July 10, four trained scorers from Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful took to the highways, parks, parking lots, the backside of strip malls and sundry other places. They took copious notes.
Guess what?
When it comes to trash statistics, the county isn’t in that bad of shape.
It has an overall litter index of 1.6.
The most litter-strewn roads are Ronald Reagan Parkway, Arc Way, Peachtree Industrial Boulevard and Williams and Rockbridge roads. What a surprise. No Buford Highway, Lawrenceville Highway or even Jimmy Carter Boulevard, which seems to always have an animal carcass or something on it.
Connie Wiggins, the Clean & Beautiful director, thought the county fared well overall. She’s not satisfied, though.
She estimates that curbing litter taxes local coffers to the tune of $250,000. That’s too much money to throw in the trash. It could be put to better use.
“We’d like to get the litter index down to a 1,” she said.
And it can be done.
But don’t expect government or some nonprofit to carry the load. Or pick up the trash. That’s where you can help. Step up. Pick up. Dial up, too.
“We need more people to report it, to let us know where they are seeing garbage, and if they see people doing it,” Wiggins told me. “When they see people doing it, they need to take down the tag number and deal with it through the police department.”
There’s something else you can do, too. It’s real simple.
Don’t litter. Don’t flick that cigarette butt into the grass. Whatever you tend to toss to the ground, find a waste basket instead.
And if you truly want to get involved, join Paul Allen and his compatriots in communities across the county. Pick up garbage. Paint over graffiti. And when an election’s been held, remove those candidate signs that campaigns leave posted.
It’s what Allen’s been doing since last week’s state primary. Within a 4-mile radius of his Norcross-area home, he estimates he and others have removed about 300 signs. When it comes to curbing litter, graffiti and such, Allen believes the people have the power.
“We rely way too much upon government to do things for us, but it simply does not have enough resources,” he told me via e-mail. “I would estimate that, in my area, at least 90 percent of the trash-type problems are resolved by us, with no assistance required.”
A piece of litter is a piece of litter. We should want all of it gone.
To report litter trouble spots, contact Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful at 770-822-5187.
