The Roadways of Our Towns

As the weather warmed this spring it lifted the blanket of white exposing the litter that lies along the roadways of our towns. Plastic, aluminum, paper, cardboard, glass and cigarette butts and more blossomed fading my view as I travel around town.

According to the Keep America Beautiful organization "Americans generate over 251 million tons of trash" each year. Well, that's a lot of dumpsters. Some of the waste gets recycled but most ends up in landfills and incinerators and an undetermined amount along our country's roadways.

The Conservation Commission in the town I live in adopted a two-mile stretch of roadway that they maintain several times a year. I asked one member of the Commission recently what seemed to be the largest amount of litter they picked up this spring, "beer cans and fast food wrappers and containers, but we can't pick up all the cigarette butts so they are not included in our assessment."

According to Keep America Beautiful, a volunteer-based community action and education organization, there are 7 primary sources of litter but for the sake of space I'll list 5 that I think closely relate to small towns:

1. Motorists without ashtrays or litter bags in their vehicle.

2. Dumpsters that are improperly covered.

3. Construction sites without proper dumpsters.

4. Trucks with uncovered loads.

5. Household trash scattered before and during collection.

By taking a few simple measures on these sources of litter we as a Americans can improve our views even more as we travel along the roadways of our towns.

Now, here are two things for you to do....

Tell me what marketing message(s) works in this blog entry?

Go to the Keep America Beautiful website and tell me what message you find that makes you want to take action.

Thanks for reading