A Litter Enforcement Workshop was held on June 25th at the Decatur County Administrative Office.  The workshop was led by Cpl. Scott Carroll, Department of Natural Resources, Randy Hartmann, director of the Office of Environmental Management for the Georgia Department of Community Affairs and Lynn Cobb from Keep Georgia Beautiful.

Randy Hartmann speaks to attendees on how litter affects property values

The workshop provided county and city officials, law enforcement and others from several counties with important information regarding the laws and effects that littering has on the quality of life and the money it costs. 

Some facts about litter presented included:

• Litter often decreases property values by as much as 15 percent
• There are 7 - 10 deaths on Georgia highways each year because of litter
• Litter damages our precious water resources
• Litter negatively impacts economic development, tourism and community pride
• Cigarette butts are the most littered item in the world
• The #1 reason people litter is because they are careless. 2/3 of what is along Georgia roadsides comes from an unsecured load. This is called negligent litter
• People caught littering can face charges from a fine of $1,000 or up to 12 years in prison, to a fine of $25,000 and/or a term of five years in prison
• No one wants to visit, work or play in a trashy environment.

County Administrator, Col. Tom Patton, opened the meeting with comments about his philosophies about littering and verbalized his commitment to the eradication of litter in Decatur County in the interest of promoting growth for our area.

The workshop was sponsored by Keep Decatur County Beautiful.  The Keep America Beautiful affiliate has been striving to bring this workshop to Decatur County for quite some time. To make it easier for people to attend,  Keep Decatur County Beautiful (KDCB) was able to enlist the financial help of several local businesses and volunteer help from friends and board members of KDCB. 

Wal-Mart, Park Avenue Bank, Southwest Georgia Oil Co., Ivey Funeral Home and Robinson Motors all made contributions.  Volunteers from the City and County and Executive Director Suzanne Brandt made centerpieces for all tables from miscellaneous recyclable materials. 

Lunch was provided for the attendees and each was presented with a "toolkit" from DNR.  Each toolkit was a canvas bag containing a coffee mug, reflective vest, disposable gloves, clipboard and tongs to sort through trash.