CINCINNATI — The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) is spending millions of dollars more on trash pickup.
“Unfortunately, we have to spend about $10 million a year just to try to pick up other people’s trash,” said ODOT Press Secretary Matt Bruning. “Just a couple of years ago we were investing about $4 million a year.”
Bruning said they are not only paying their crews to clean up the highways and interstates but also other organizations.
“We expect to be invested in roads and bridges and unfortunately some of that has to be diverted over to pick up other people’s trash,” Bruning said.
He said ODOT has to do this because if they don’t the trash will keep piling up.
“We’re all taxpayers,” he said. “We all put money into this system. It shouldn’t have to be used to pick up other people’s trash.”
ODOT has picked up 89,000 bags of trash this year. To put that into perspective, Bruning said that’s about two bags of trash per seat at Great American Ball Park.
Executive Director of Keep Cincinnati Beautiful Jonathan Adee said his organization has an annual partnership with ODOT. He said the cleanup effort happened last month.
“We notice there was just a lot more trash than there has been in previous years,” Adee said. “It used to be everything was a cigarette bud, now it’s more like takeout containers.”
He said he noticed the switch around four years ago during the COVID pandemic.
Adee said Keep Cincinnati Beautiful primarily focuses on city and residential streets and relies on volunteers to help keep the city’s streets clean.
“The part I think that our volunteers are the most frustrated with is they go out, spend three to four hours picking up a location, then they do that on a Saturday and come back on Monday and half of it is already there,” Adee said.
He said litter is an expensive problem for Cincinnati.
“It’s an issue economically,” he said. “Illegal dumping is about a $3 million problem for the city of Cincinnati because they have to remediate it. It’s an issue of public health.“
Adee wants Cincinnati to be a welcoming place, so it’s important to keep the streets clean.
“This is something that probably isn’t anybody’s No. 1 concern, but it should be everyone’s concern,” Adee said.
Bruning said some of the things they find are dangerous and nasty.
“We’ve found weapons, we have found needles and drug paraphernalia,” he said. “I think one of the most disgusting things our crews deal with is what’s called a trucker bomb, which is a bottle of urine that we find. I’ve heard of poop socks.”
Litter-filled highways and interstates can also cause problems when it rains.
“A lot of time when we see heavy rains; for example, that cause flooding on our interstate highways it’s because there’s trash in the storm drain that’s blocking things up,” Bruning said.
He said the solution to this problem is simple, but it will require people to break a dirty habit.
“The cheapest solution to this is to just take care of your trash yourself,” he said. “We need to people us by putting trash where it belongs.”
Bruning said if people want to help they can join the Adopt-a-Highway program. He said ODOT will provide you with the materials to keep the highways and interstates clean.
Adee said his organization is also always looking for more volunteers to keep Cincinnati clean.
