Littering continues to be a problem around metro Atlanta.
As a witness to the trash polluting his county, Cherokee County District 3 Commissioner Benny Carter’s mindset focused on a solution.
Reviving the disbanded “Keep Cherokee Beautiful” Carter asked Mark Preetorius to lead the organization. “I was happy to take this on,” said the CEO and co-founder of KCB. “I drive up I-575 and I just see all this litter coming off of these dumpster trucks going up to the landfill in Ball Ground.
“I start looking at all these other side streets and they’re all just covered with trash. That’s not where I want to live,” Preetorius stated.
KCB’s three planks in its mission statement hit on litter cleanup, adopt-a-mile and illegal dumping, according to the CEO. Looking at the bigger picture, they are also in the process of becoming an affiliate of Keep America Beautiful.
“We’re interested in picking up litter on our roadways that eventually wind up in the creeks, that rise up in the rivers and ends up in Lake Allatoona. There are coves in Lake Allatoona that you can literally drive a kayak up to, get out and walk to shore stepping on nothing but garbage. It’s terrible,” he said.
Two cleanups, 38 community volunteers, over 10 miles, 8 hours, 206 bags of trash weighing approximately 4,000 pounds have been picked up over the last two months.
Credit: contribu
Credit: contribu
Credit: contri
Credit: contri
The first to Adopt-A-Mile was Tom and Ann Earley, with the North Georgia Pickleball Club. They hosted the cleanup on Water Tank Road, which produced eight bags of trash weighing about 160 pounds. The program has four roads accounted for: Water Tank, Upper Sweetwater Trail, Campbell and Union Hill.
Several different groups from private individuals to schools are seeking to Adopt-A-Mile, according to the CEO. The five-step process is easy, everything is on the website, the required cleanup is only three to four times a year and it’s a great way to get involved in Cherokee county, he noted.
“We encourage everybody to take a slice of their life, a small part of their time and make their community a little bit better” Preetorius said.
To sign up or for more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/KeepCherokeeBeautiful/ or call (770) 345-6238.
Each Sunday we write about a deserving person or charity events such as fun-runs, volunteer projects and other community gatherings that benefit a good cause. To submit a story for us to cover, send to ajc.doinggood@gmail.com.
