ROCKINGHAM — For the second consecutive month, 3.6 tons of garbage were collected from Richmond County roadsides.
While delivering his monthly report to the Board of Commissioners Tuesday evening, County Manager Bryan Land said that 27 roads were cleaned during the month of June, with workers from the county and N.C. Department of Transportation collecting 495 bags of trash.
Sixteen of those bags were picked up along the four sweeps down Airport Road, according to the Solid Waste Report.
The county also filled 21 bags each on Sandhills and Wiregrass roads and 19 on Mizpah Road.
Other trash bag totals from the county include:
- 14 bags – Freeman Mill, Harrington and Mill roads
- 12 bags – County Home Road
- 11 bags – Old Cheraw and Lee Thee Church roads
- 9 bags – Galestown, Hatcher, Loch Haven and Rosalyn roads
- 8 bags – Battley Dairy Road
- 6 bags – E. Washington Street Ext., Hannah Pickett Avenue, Oak Ridge Church Road
- 4 bags – Chalk, Hall roads, Spring Drive
- 3 bags – Church Street
- 2 bags – Eason Drive
The county also found 16 tires: four each on Eason Drive and Hall Road; three each on Old Cheraw Road and Church Street; and two on Mill Road.
In total, county workers picked up 2.2 tons of trash.
NCDOT collected 1.4 tons of trash: 91 bags on U.S. 220; 96 bags on U.S. 74 Business; and 76 bags on U.S. 1.
Local and state crews picked up 3.6 tons in May, including 69 bags from Wiregrass Road.
There was also one illegal dump site reported and one investigated, two warning notices issued, and one garbage-burning investigation. No citations were issued in June.
“We continue to receive positive feedback from our Earth Day clean-up event that we did approximately two months ago,” Land told Commissioners. “It was a huge success, countywide, and plans are already in the works for a follow-up event as early as the fall.”
During that event, volunteers from across the county picked up 3.2 tons of trash from some of the same roads frequently cleaned by the county and state.
County records show more than 30 tons of trash have been picked up from local roads in the first six months of the year.
But it’s not just a Richmond County problem.
NCDOT reported last month that more than 7 million pounds of roadside litter had been collected statewide in less than six months, inching closer to the 2019 total of 10.5 million pounds.
