State Can’T Keep Up With Litterbugs Study Says 22 Million Pounds Of Trash Ends Up On Roads, In Parks

Roadways have become Washington’s communal garbage cans.

Smelly diapers, inner tubes, hypodermic needles, plastic jugs and glass bottles were found in the tall grass along Interstate 90 on Wednesday.

During their first day cleaning I-90, the six-member Ecology Youth Corps group found informal garbage dumps lining the road from Sullivan to Barker in the Valley.

Litter has become a problem the state can’t keep pace with, even with adopt-a-highway programs and help from teens working summer jobs for the Ecology Youth Corps.

According to the results of a study released this week by the state Department of Ecology, 22 million pounds of litter ends up on road shoulders and picnic areas in Washington each year.

The Ecology department spends $5 million to $7 million on cleanup per year, yet only gets to one quarter of the litter. The rest sticks around, creating an eyesore and environmental hazard.

Crews find broken glass, methamphetamine lab chemicals and hypodermic needles along highways. Larger illegal dumps often contain human and animal waste.

“The health hazards are really increasing,” said Megan Thomas, litter programs coordinator for the state.

Cigarette butts line the shoulder along I-90 near Barker at the rate of approximately a dozen per square foot.

Flicking one cigarette out the car window doesn’t seem like a problem to some people. But they don’t realize that each butt joins 260 million others in Washington each year, an amount that would fill 8,600 of the blue litter bags used by the Ecology Youth Corps.

“It’s dirtier today than when I started five years ago,” said John Marshall, an elementary school teacher supervising the crew in the Valley. It’s not unusual for the six-member crews to pick up 60 to 90 bags of trash a day.

Ten crews of teens ages 14 to 17 work cleaning the shoulders of roads throughout the region. Two work in the Spokane area. For many it’s an eye-opening first job. They make $6.75 an hour.

On a typical mile of roadway, 2,000 pounds of litter are collected each year. The crews try to clean six to seven miles each day.

“We have more crews out, but that’s not solving the problem,” Marshall said.

The Ecology department thinks a solution might be to step up educational efforts. The department plans to launch a campaign aimed at young people. A recent department survey found that litterbugs are more likely to be male than female and more likely to be teens or young adults than older adults.

The department will also work to educate people about accidental littering. Sometimes, cardboard bounces out of a truck bed or a newspaper flies out of the window of a car. Most people surveyed didn’t see accidental littering as a problem. This unintentional litter makes up 40 percent of the problem in the state.

The department will try to get people to secure whatever they might be hauling and go back and pick up anything that accidentally falls out.

The best education is to get an up-close view of the state’s roadways. The 96 teens around the state working for the Ecology Youth Corps this summer will probably never litter again, said Gary Lambacher, coordinator for the area.

“They really think people are pigs at the end of the summer,” he said.

It only took many of the kids a full morning to realize that.

Dan Niehenke, 14, stumbled across a mini-dump of garbage near an interchange while working in the Valley. He and his crewmates seemed incredulous at the things they’d picked up, especially the dirty diaper.

“There’s a lot more litter here than you’d think,” Niehenke said.