Sullivan: WA roads accumulated 38 million pounds of litter, stop littering!

What will it take for the 25% of Washington residents who intentionally litter to stop throwing garbage out of their cars?

I will never understand someone who crumples up a hamburger wrapper, rolls down the car window and just tosses it into the breeze. Maybe that’s why my front passenger seat floor looks the way it does.

But seriously, 25% of us admit to tossing stuff out the window. What’s the No. 1 reason why? They don’t want a dirty car. A dirty freeway is fine, but not a dirty car.

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That’s why the Department of Ecology is giving away free small garbage bags that you can put in your car.

“They told us if they had a litter bag or some sort of container in their car where they could put their trash, they’d be less likely to toss it out the window,” Amber Smith, the Statewide Litter Prevention Coordinator for the Department of Ecology, said. “People are concerned about keeping their car clean.”

It’s these small, individual choices to put that trash in the bag instead of out the window that can really make a difference.

“People might not think it’s that big of a deal for one wrapper or one bottle to go out the window, but that adds up to millions of pounds and millions of dollars to try to clean this stuff up,” Smith said.

How about a few stats to shock you? This is what litter patrols picked up in Washington last year.

“We all picked up about 11.2 million pounds of litter, and while that was a record-setting effort, that’s still only a fraction of the 38 million pounds accumulating across the state every year,” Smith said.

And that doesn’t even include any garbage removed from homeless encampments.

“That’s 38 million pounds of litter that’s accumulating along our roadways, public areas and none of that is homeless encampments,” Smith said.

All that trash is tracked by a different agency, and there is a lot.

But this 38 million pounds is on us, including anything we fail to secure in our pickups or in our boats. Smith said at least half of the trash that ends up on our roads is placed there on purpose.

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The state spends $12 million a year picking up this trash. Money that could be spent elsewhere.

That’s where these free bags come in. You can find them at Fred Meyer stores and Rosauer’s Groceries around the state, while supplies last.

Toss that wrapper in the bag and not out the window.

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