Governor Moore Pushes New Anti-Littering Campaign

Maryland. – The state of Maryland is pushing to improve the quality of the state by asking residents to pick up their litter.

The Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration has launched a new campaign that targets littering on roads, with Governor Moore asking everyone to consider the health and beauty of the environment. The sudden urge for clean infrastructure is pushed by the high price of removing loose garbage.

“We spent more than $17 million on picking up, debris, removing litter and that type of thing. So that money could be used for so many other things. That can pave 113 lane miles of highway.” says Charlie Gischlar, of the Maryland State Highway Administration.

Gischlar explained that the high price is because of investments made for staff that remove the trash and also repairing equipment damaged by litter such as lawnmowers. Experts say that driver safety can be impacted by litter as seen with broken glass on the roads or harder objects acting as a projectile when run over. Environmental health can also be improved with this campaign, notably with reducing trash in the Chesapeake Bay. Infrastructure is said to be negatively affected by trash clogging storm drains.

“So drainage becomes very critical and crucial there, especially during the summer when we get the threat of the hurricanes and also just a big summer thunderstorms if there’s litter clogging up our system, it’s just going to run in the road and cause a flooding potential.” says Gischlar.