Beaufort County litter program hauls in trash by the ton, but is it making a dent?

If the sheer volume of trash collected is an accurate indicator, Beaufort County’s six-month-old litter control pilot program is an unmitigated success.

But despite reports of a significant increase in the amount of litter removed from roadways and medians, discarded fast-food bags and plastic bottles are still a common sight for drivers.

So, is the county’s program — aimed at improving coordination among public works staff, the S.C. Department of Transportation, and local Adopt-a-Highway volunteer groups — working?

According to data recently presented to county leaders by public works director David Wilhelm, nearly 53,000 pounds of litter was picked up between July and December of 2016.

That figure represents a roughly 75 percent increase over the same period in 2015, Wilhelm said.

In addition to hauling in more trash, the county has seen a major uptick in volunteerism over the past year, he said.

Adopt-a-Highway volunteers totaled about 1,600 people prior to the launch of the county’s pilot program, which created a single point of contact to coordinate volunteer efforts and respond to complaints. There are now about 2,400 volunteers organized into 55 groups south of the Broad River and 25 groups to the north.

In 2015, volunteers put in about 800 hours picking up litter.

Last year, that figure jumped to roughly 3,000 hours, Wilhelm said.

“We’ve made some pretty impressive improvements in the last six months and we hope to continue that trend,” he said.

But, he acknowledged keeping pace with the increases seen during the first months of the county’s litter program will be a challenge.

“It would be nice to see a steady 10 to 15 percent growth every year” in terms of the amount of litter removed from county roads, Wilhelm said.

Even with the increased production from litter clean-up crews, some locals say they just haven’t noticed a huge difference.

Tonya Burrell, who was running errands Monday afternoon at the Tanger Outlets 2 shopping center in greater Bluffton, said she “see(s) litter every day” as she cruises around the area.

“It can be really bad in the medians on (U.S. 278),” she said.

Fellow shopper Stacy Leggett echoed her sentiment.

“It’s not a good look for people coming into the area (on U.S. 278) to see all the litter,” she said.

“But, I guess there’s really only so much you can do,” Leggett said. “You can’t have cops on every corner just waiting for people to throw something out of their window.”

Wilhelm said the county “has been successful on occasion” catching and fining individual litterers, but said enforcement “is an uphill battle.”

This story was originally published January 24, 2017 at 5:02 PM with the headline "Beaufort County litter program hauls in trash by the ton, but is it making a dent?."