MID-HUDSON – The State Department of Transportation commemorates Earth Day, or rather Earth Days, by cleaning the large amount of garbage that is thrown from cars during the winter. Last year the DOT picked up 3,100 bags full of garbage from Hudson Valley state roadways.
Regional DOT Director Lance McMillan says it’s a waste of taxpayers’ dollars and it makes our beautiful roads unsightly, to say the least.
“You can affect a large footprint by just throwing one item out your window. Save it, put it in a bag, throw it out when you get home, and do us all a favor to preserve the environment and the aesthetics along our highway systems.”
MacMillan says all kinds of garbage are dumped along the roadways, from car, batteries to tires and firearms.
“We try and practice safe litter cleanup and we do find a wide variety of things, and occasionally a weapon or a firearm or something like that. We immediately report it to the local authorities and they do their due diligence to backtrack where it came from.”
Besides garbage thrown from cars, state workers who clean the roads are often exposed to biohazards as they work.
“Biohazards are a frequent issue in and around some of our truck stop locations where people use bottles to go the bathroom then they throw them out the window so there’s an immense amount of hazards to our workforce.
McMillan says you can help to keep our roadways beautiful.
“Every gas station I’ve seen has got garbage cans so when you stop to get gas to refuel or even plug in, you could take that opportunity to clean out your car.”
