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April 23, 2008
Journal photo / Bill Murphy
Nami Moghadan, director of maintenance for the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, stands next to trash collected from the state's roadsides on Monday. The pile was the focus of an Earth Day press event aimed at asking motorists to help keep the state's roads, highways and bridges clean.
Eight hundred bags of trash.
That's the result of one day's work cleaning up roads in Rhode Island this week.
The pile was used by the state Department of Transportation to illustrate the trash problem in the state.
DOT Director Michael Lewis said, “Every piece of trash we had to pick up was disposed of improperly and that’s a shame.”
The biggest litter problems in Rhode Island are beverage containers, including water, soda and alcohol bottles, fast food packaging, and cigarette butts, according to the DOT. Nationally, the top three litter problems are fast food waste, paper products, and aluminum beer cans.
The DOT says debris on roadways nationwide causes 25,000 accidents and over 80 fatalities each year. About 55 percent of roadside litter occurs intentionally by people dropping their trash on the road. The other 45 percent of roadside litter is caused by trash blowing out of uncovered trucks or falling off of unsecured loads.
“While it might only take two to five weeks for a banana peel to decompose, it takes 200 to 500 years for an aluminum can to do the same. RIDOT is asking motorists to take their trash home and dispose of it properly because Earth Day isn’t just today but every day,” said Lewis.
Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth 
at 11:23 AM to On the road
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Please be civil. Vicious comments, personal attacks and profanity won't be published.
