By Dawn Burleigh

The Orange Leader

 

Don’t be litterbugs; pick up trash, the headline read in a February edition of The Natchez Democrat. Written by the Democrat editorial board, it addressed what ‘Adams County Sheriff Travis Patten told county supervisors…something no parent wants to hear — your children are trashy.’

The editorial continued, ‘The sheriff told supervisors that in the last month inmate crews had picked up nearly 700 bags of trash along county roadways.

Sheriff Patten said that crews could finish cleaning up a road and come back hours later to find trash scattered about again.

“It is a serious problem,” Patten said. “We need to self-police each other because there is too much trash. As soon as we go down a road and clear it, two hours later we go back down the road and it’s flooded with trash again. We need to be our brothers’ keepers and start calling in tags on folks.”’

Upon first reading the column, one would have thought it was about Orange.

While in 2018, litter citations rose in the city of Orange to 12 citations issued, it is not enough.

Shangri La held it’s annual Community-Wide Clean Up and Keep Orange County Beautiful (KOCB) joined it with a Tire Clean Up. Cheers to the two organizations and to Superior Tire for partnering with KOCB and to INVISTA for sponsoring the cleanup.

Yet, as one drives through Orange County tires, recliners, mattresses and empty fast food bags litter the roads and ditches. I counted 13 tires in one mile on one road in the county and 10 in another mile on a road in the city of Orange.

It took two weeks for most of those tires to be removed. However, recliners and mattresses are taking their place.

On the second Saturday of each month, Trash Talk – Keep Orange, Texas Clean, meets at 8 a.m. at a different location to help pick up the litter. The locations are announced on the Facebook page Trash Talk – Keep Orange, Texas Clean.

“KOCB is always seeking volunteers to join the “Trashy Ladies” for the Second Saturday “Talking Trash” projects with Orange Mayor Larry Spears, Jr.” according to a recent press release from the organization.

This is our home and the last thing we want anyone to do is to trash it up. If you see someone littering, please report it.

And in the spirit of Smokey the Bear, only you can stop littering.

Remember, reduce, reuse, recycle and please do not litter. Let’s make Orange County beautiful.