Dear Editor,
My husband and I moved to Santa Rosa County a year ago from western New York. This area is very beautiful and we love it here. I do have a problem about the way some people in this area throw their trash along the roads. I was travelling Willard Norris Road this past week and the highway department was out mowing the shoulders of the road. Under the long grass were tons of paper, cardboard, bottles, cans and anything else you can imagine. I have seen full garbage bags tossed along the roadways. Who do these people think will haul away their trash? I find it disgusting people have so little respect for others properties. I’m sure the folks here know there is a landfill in Milton and for $3 you can dump a lot of garbage and other unwanted things. They also have recycling bins so there is no excuse for dumping along the roadways. Some folks make the excuse it gives the prisoners something to do but the prisoners aren’t out there every day and the rest of us still have to look at the mess and clean up our own property from thoughtless, uncaring individuals. One solution could be what was done in the town we previously lived but we need our local elected officials to step up to the plate and do something. Our previous town contracted with the waste and recycling companies by taking the lowest bidder to collect the garbage and recycles. They supplied a large garbage tote and a large recycling tote to each address at no cost to the resident. The cost of pick up was added to our property taxes at $153.53 per year and was less than what the folks here are paying for pick up. We had a company here pick up trash and it cost us $71 per quarter which I thought was extreme. I called another company and got a quote of $49 per quarter plus a $30 deposit on each trash receptacle. The trash in New York was picked up weekly and the recycles every other week and it worked out well. The local company would be the same pick up schedule. Another solution would be for the State of Florida to institute a bottle law. The state would charge a fee per bottle or can of beer, soda, or any other liquid of $.05. The empty bottle would be returned to the store for a refund of the $.05 cents. It would discourage people from throwing cans or bottles along the roads and even if they continued to toss their bottles, other folks would collect the containers for the refund. This law was implemented in New York and helped clean up the highways there. I hope someone in our county government will do something about this problem. It is hard for me to believe I am the only one who is disgusted by the actions of a few uncaring people.
Helen Thomson
Milton
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Commissioners need a solution for litter in SRC