Motorists on Walnut Avenue were greeted Wednesday morning by this sight: several pieces of litter blowing in the turn lane that could have come from an untarped load. While Whitfield County Public Works crews aren’t responsible for cleaning up this stretch of road, they do see lots more litter just like this, and worse, along county roads. Now, they are asking residents to think about the consequences before they toss trash out of their car window.
Most Saturday mornings, Terry Bryson and his small team of employees and community service workers head out from the Whitfield County Public Works office on Gillespie Drive.
Their mission? To pick up some of the thousands of pounds of litter that accumulate each day along the 718 miles of roads throughout the county.
Unfortunately, their task appears to be a never-ending challenge.
Mr. Bryson has been leading a team of workers for about 15 years now, and based on statistics from the past five years, it appears they definitely have job security.
“Unfortunately, we’re on target to pick up 50 or 60 tons this year,” Public Works Director DeWayne Hunt said.
In fact, Mr. Hunt said the crew picked up litter along U.S. 41 South recently. The next week, Bryson went back to spray herbicides on the side of the road, and litter was already gathering on the road they had just cleaned up.
“For some reason, a few citizens have the need to get rid of their drink cups or sandwich bags immediately,” he said. “However, most people are within minutes of a trash can.”
Mr. Hunt asks local residents to contact the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office if they see someone dumping tires or furniture or other large items.
“The sheriff’s department will come out and investigate an illegal dump site,” he said.
He also asks that residents properly tarp their garbage in the back of their pickups to prevent it from blowing out. Mr. Hunt says that is a common problem on the Bypass, where improperly tarped loads on the way to the landfill sometimes result in a large item falling onto the road.
Mr. Hunt says some roads in the county just seem to attract litter more than others.
“There are several roads that we seem to have to go back and clean up time after time,” he says, “which keeps us from getting around to the whole county because we return to our worst roads.”
Public Works isn’t the only group trying to combat litter here. The sheriff’s department has a work crew of inmates that pick up litter along the roadsides, and others like Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful and Adopt-a-Mile are doing their part, too.
“There’s a lot of different agencies trying to keep our county litter free,” Mr. Hunt points out. “A few organizations can’t keep the county clean; citizens have to do their part, and then we can be there to augment them.”
“Right now we’re committed to litter pickup, so we will continue to do it every Saturday,” he said. “I would rather those efforts could go toward road or park maintenance.”
While studies show only a small percentage of people do litter, Mr. Hunt believes the increasing population of Whitfield County has made the problem seem worse.
“Thirty or 40 years ago you would have considered Whitfield County a rural area,” he says. “Now we are 100,000 people. That’s a lot of vehicles traveling our roads on a daily basis; a little bit of garbage from a few cars turns out to be a lot of garbage by the end of the month. If Bryson’s Saturday crew wasn’t on the roads , it would look worse in no time.”
He would like for residents to make a conscious effort not to litter.
“Garbage doesn’t grow on the side of the road,” Mr. Hunt said. “It’s a conscious effort for 90 percent of the litter to get on the ground. There will always be accidents here and there, and public works is ready to respond to that type situation.”
Not only does the litter look bad, Mr. Hunt says it costs taxpayers, too. “Public Works is doing our part to help clean up the roads,” he says, “but if we need to pick up more roads to catch up, then that will require more manhours, more equipment which leads to higher taxes for everybody.”
Already, the county employees who pick up litter are on overtime pay.
“They’re not free hours,” Mr. Hunt says. “There is an expense associated with litter. Our overtime labor, fuel and maintenance add up over the years, add in the landfill tipping fees, and litter costs the taxpayers of Whitfield County.”
THE DIRTIEST ROADS IN WHITFIELD COUNTY
Here’s a list compiled by Public Works, which keeps up with the number of times crews have picked up along each road from 2011-2015
1. Prospect Road (44 times)
2. Parrot Road (41)
3. Brooker Drive (34)
4. TimberGhost Road (21)
5. Old Tilton Road (18)
6. Waring Road (15)
7. Standing Road (14)
8. Ledford Road (13)
9. South Riverbend Road (13)
10. Five roads tied at 12 – Tibbs Bridge Road, Underwood Road, Dug Gap Road, Walt Maddron Road, Airport Road.