As everyone around Hammock Inc. is aware (sometimes painfully), I am passionate about preventing litter. I generate so little trash that I don't have a trash can in my office.
I recently attended a Metro Beautification and Environment Commission retreat. Here are some of the highlights:
Shawn Bible, the Beautification Coordinator for TDOT, was one of our speakers. I learned that TDOT spends over $6 million of taxpayers’ money each year to pick up litter off highways. And the streets are still a mess!
There is going to be a revival of the Adopt-A-Highway program in Tennessee. This is a program where a civic group adopts a couple of miles of highway to clean up three or four times a year. I see a great Team Hammock opportunity here.
Shawn spoke about how billboards are a multimillion dollar business and won’t go away. If you find them annoying, just live with it.
Tennesseans can also apply for grants to beautify highways in the Tennessee Roadscape Program.
Edith W. Heller, our state leader for Keep Tennessee Beautiful, spoke about how KTnB.org is the gold standard among states in the Keep America Beautiful program. Every county in Tennessee participated in the Great American Cleanup last year. No other state had every county participate. Over 25% of the citizens of Tennessee were part of a Great American Cleanup group, too. Around 25% of Hammock Inc. employees participated in an event in May.
From Ms. Heller's talk, I learned that a group is working to reduce the amount of cigarette litter (butts) in downtown Nashville.
The worst litterers are between 18-34 years old. This is a horrible statistic. Luckily, KTnB.org utilizes social media tools to target this group.
After the retreat, I’m encouraged that much is being done with school programs to discourage children from becoming litterers. I learned that there are lots of groups who care and who are working to solve the problem. Unfortunately, I hate that my tax dollars are going to clean up someone else’s trash.
One of the greatest things I learned was that Tennessee passed a litter law last summer, TCA 39-14-5. Officer Kevin Kennett of the Litter Patrol of the Tennessee Highway Patrol, also spoke to us.
The Tennessee litter law is online at www.ktnb.org/educationalresources.
Officer Kennett went over a few highlights of this law:
1. Getting caught tossing a cigarette butt up to five pounds of litter is punishable by a $50 fine and 40-hours of community service.
2. Criminal littering is tossing anything from 5-8 pounds on the roadways. The fines are more.
3. Aggravated criminal littering is 10 pounds or more. And the fines are even more.
I learned that 30% of the litter on our roadways is deliberate littering. Joe Smoo eats lunch in his car and tosses the McDonald’s bag out the window.
Now, 70% of littering comes from trash blowing out of open bed pick ups that over 40% of Tennesseans drive. In Tennessee, “motor vehicle{s}…shall be required to have such materials in an enclosed space or fully covered by a tarpaulin.” Officer Kennett is working with local police officers to make sure that this law is enforced. There is also a law that there must be 4" of clearance in the truck bed. Thus, loose litter must be contained within the back of the truck and covered by a tarp.
