Adopt-A-Highway
NAPS adopted the stretch of VA Route 200 between Tipers Bridge over the Great Wicomico River and Wicomico Church in the early 1990's. A crew of NAPS volunteers, under the leadership of Anne Bélanger, picks up highway litter several times each year. Anne also serves as liaison between NAPS and the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) Adopt-A-Highway program, not only in promoting the program, but in signing up a number of church, high school and other volunteer groups. From time to time, NAPS has been asked to conduct cleanups of particularly bad spots, usually illegal dumps. Contact Anne to join the team!
Keeping our highways clean is a difficult challenge. It is likely that we have all accidentally littered. The composition of trash found along highways characterizes the most frequent litterers, and reflects on our society. Similar results have emerged from many studies.
Cigarette butts along with other tobacco-related items are by far the most abundant trash found along highways. If smokers insist on compromising their health by smoking, they at least need to learn to use their ash trays and dispose of the contents properly (not in a parking lot).
After tobacco products, refuse from the fast food industry is the most abundant trash found alongside highways. Beverage cups, caps and straws, along with product packaging are the most common items, about equally divided between plastic and more easily degradable paper. Household items, especially food-related, constitute the next most abundant category of debris. In most cases the brand name is identifiable. Aluminum cans are usually obvious because they are shiny, but they constitute only about 10% of all highway debris. Glass only contributes only a few percent to the debris. Items associated with smoking and eating make up nearly two-thirds of the debris collected from typical highways during clean-up.
Clearly, the fast-food industry, including convenience stores, needs to be more responsible in using easily degradable packaging, in trying to educate people, especially children, not to litter the roadside and in taking responsibility by helping to clean up the highways around their stores. In Northumberland County, the only food-related enterprise that has adopted a highway is Cockrell’s Creek Seafood Deli and none of the fast-food stores in Kilmarnock have adopted highways in Lancaster County. But it is ultimately the litterers themselves who are responsible for almost of all our highway trash, and who are subject to fines for their actions.
In addition to food and smoking-related items, just about anything can be found alongside highways. Hubcaps are common, and certainly accidental. It is difficult to understand, however, how a battery can fall out of a vehicle accidentally. We must conclude, unfortunately, that a few people consciously use the highways as dumps.