COLUMBIA, SC – The South Carolina Department of Transportation is conducting a large garbage collection across the state as part of its “Spring Spruce Up” initiative.
The agency says hundreds of its employees will collect garbage at its first of two annual collection events.
Organizers say employees and volunteers will leave the agency’s headquarters and county offices starting this morning, and urge drivers to be careful when they are close to the teams.
This happens when people across the state notice that South Carolina’s roads are looking difficult.
South Carolina Department of Transportation officials say it may be because people are eating out more and then throwing out bags and boxes.
“To eat out, there are only more disposable dishes,” said Brittany Harriot, of the agency. “Even masks and gloves, we are discovering.”
In addition, the Department of Corrections cleaning teams that you would normally see taking care of our roads and highways have not left because of the safety precautions of COVID-19.
“We are not going to put them in danger,” said director Bryan Stirling. “We are not going to put our policeman, who would be in the van with them, in danger … There are 220 inmates who should be cleaning there, but we stopped everything when COVID started.”
Although garbage is a problem across the state, residents of the Aiken area, like Stacie Simpkins, have been working to resolve the problem.
She and Marianne Yost founded a non-profit organization dedicated to solving the problem in the area of Aiken. They formed a group on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/449705456461802) and within a day or two they had hundreds of members.
“You look at the floor and it is covered in garbage,” said Simpkins. “It is really a statewide problem.”
She said she moved to the area in 2014, “and is getting progressively worse.”
She said authorities had pledged to place signs to warn against trash.
In addition to enforcing anti-garbage laws, it is about changing the culture so people don’t throw garbage, she says.
“It starts at home,” she said.
“Children learn from their parents.”
That is why one of the focuses is the group, the schools. She hopes that if the children see their parents throwing trash, they will talk.
Another idea is to run a competition between schools to see which children can create the best design for a sign.
“At the end of the day, this needs to be resolved,” she said.
Last week, Friends of the Animal Shelter and Aiken County Animal Shelter partnered with Clean Up Aiken to clean up trash and rubbish on the Wire Road side and around the shelter property.
From WCSC, WRDW / WAGT and WIS reports