2017 Trash-a-thon Results

Help us clean up Pierce County! Please support efforts to bring about change at our local level, including these actions that were proposed at the May 2017 County Commissioners meeting:

• Organize volunteer groups to pick up trash off of dirt roads

• Place “No Litter” signs along our roadways, in our parks, and at boat ramps
• Educate people about the importance of picking up trash
• Put more trash cans in places where people go
• Make it mandatory that people get their household and business trash picked up, so it doesn’t end up dumped on our roadways and at our boat ramps
• Provide more opportunities for County residents to get rid of larger items, like old furniture, tires, and electronics.
• Increase enforcement of illegal dumping

I presented these actions as part of ongoing efforts to raise awareness about the trash on our local roads and in our rivers. From October 2016 to April 2017, a group of volunteers and I picked up trash and recorded the types of trash we found along a 10-mile stretch of road. In all, we removed 4,785 lbs (and 10,781 items) of garbage! You can re-trace our steps along this journey here:

• Cleanup #1 (October 2016) – 960 lbs of trash in 1.1 miles
• Cleanup #2 (November 2016) – 850 lbs of trash in 0.7 miles
• Cleanup #3 (December 2016) – 320 lbs of trash in 1.3 miles
• Cleanup #3b (December 2016) – 23.5 lbs of trash in 0.5 miles
• Cleanup #4 (January 2017) – 500 lbs of trash in 1.0 miles
• Cleanup #5 (February 2017) – 709 lbs of trash in 1.0 miles
• Cleanup #6 and #7 (March 2017) – 1,021 lbs of trash in 2.2 miles
• Cleanup #8 (April 2017) – 350 lbs of trash in 1.2 miles
• Cleanup #9 (April 2017) – 52 lbs of trash in 1.0 miles

During this pickup, we also recorded the types of trash, by paved and dirt road sections. There were some big differences. Most of the bigger items came from illegal dumping on the dirt roads. Construction materials, tires, windows, TVs, mattresses, furniture, you name it! We picked up 647 pounds of trash per mile, on average! Even though we only collect 177 pounds of trash per mile on paved roads, the biggest problem on these roads was cigarette butts and cigarette packaging. We picked up 4,521 cigarette butts and cigar tips in all, making up 60% of all items picked up on paved roads…and we probably didn’t even get them all! Other main sources of litter were disposable cups, plastic water bottles, glass beverage bottles, aluminum cans, plastic bags, and food wrappers. Many of these items can be recycled, if recycling was an option in our county.

Break down of items picked up during our Trash-a-thon

Let’s join together to make sure our County is a beautiful and nice place for people to live and visit and we have a healthy environment for all of us.

Thank you!