Resolving that litter problem

Trash blowing across the road, settling against a fence. Humans tossing cigarette butts out of their car windows. Human apathy for recycling. It all adds up to one thing: litter. Area agencies are trying to find a remedy.Solutions are needed to prevent the problem of litter and to punish those who do litter, said Douglas Bruce, El Paso County commissioner.One challenge is identifying the source of litter, Bruce said. “When it’s blown, it’s hard to see where it came from, like developer created litter from construction sites,” he said.Bruce suggests imposing an impact fee for homebuilders. Builders would pay a fee per square foot of the project they are building, which would cover the cost of hiring people to pick up trash the builders create.”It needs to be dealt with it at the source,” he said. “There is no reason it can’t be made a condition of a building contract. When an inspector sees a messy area, the developer is given a warning and if there is still no clean up, they are fined.”He said only new construction sites in the unincorporated county could be regulated this way because there is no control over the city.A community service program would help, too, Bruce said.”It’s not the job of the people with plastic bags who give up their Saturday and pick up the trash from the slobs,” he added.”A number of them (developers) don’t care because there is no pressure to care.”Some developers say they do care.Peter Searle, Colorado Springs vice president of operations for John Laing Homes, said the company makes a strong effort to clean up construction areas.”We monitor the litter the best we can,” Searle said. “It’s the winds that play havoc with us.””All contractors at John Laing Homes are required to clean up the site every day,” he said. They also provide one trash bin, which is replaced twice a week, for every two houses, he said. And two days a week, clean-up crews pick up the trash on site. The developer also calls homeowners near the construction site to get permission to pick up trash that has blown on their property.”They are usually happy we do it,” he said.T-Bone Construction President Mike Thibault said he also takes steps to create a clean construction site.Sites are cleaned up at the end of every day, Thibault said. Workers try not to overfill the dumpsters, he said, and when they are full, they are emptied and replaced with another dumpster.”If the employees care about their job, the jobsite and the company’s reputation, then they will take the time to make sure that it is cleaned up,” Thibault said.And litter is not just the problem of developers. It’s society’s problem, and prevention is the key to reducing litter, according to Keep America Beautiful.The mission of KAB is litter prevention education, which starts in grade school and continues to adulthood, said Rob Wallace, Keep America Beautiful vice president of communications. “Education is the main thrust of our mission,” he said.KAB encourages programs for graffiti removal, playground restoration and litter clean up.KAB was founded in 1953 when Americans were discovering the highway, Wallace said. “At that time there was not a litter ethic,” he said. People were traveling more and eating fast food and throwing their wrappers out their car windows, he said. “They were without a previous frame of reference.”There are currently 560 KAB affiliates throughout the United States, with 1,000 organizations that participate in KAB-sponsored programs.Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful is a local KAB nonprofit chapter that was organized in 1990, said Dee Allen, KCSB executive director. She said many factors contribute to the increase in litter over the past few years.Citizens contribute to the litter problem through carelessness, she said. People often do not bag the trash from their home and dump it loosely into their curbside trash can. When haulers empty the trash bin, the trash often blows away. “It’s not the haulers responsibility to run around and collect the loose trash,” Allen said.Don’t leave trash cans outside overnight, she said. Dogs and other animals may get into the trash cans and spread it all over the ground.Make sure to cover the load of trash when hauling it to the dump; otherwise, the trash blows out of the vehicle. It’s obvious, but dumping trash just anywhere to avoid paying a fee is illegal.America’s worst litter bugs: smokers.”If you counted all the litter, one-third of the litter in the country would be cigarette litter,” Wallace said. “Some people do not realize that cigarette butts are not bio-degradable, and the butts find their way into rivers and streams.”Wendy Johnson, El Paso County Department of Education Adopt-A-Road program coordinator, agreed that cigarette litter is a problem.Although it’s after-the-fact, the Adopt-A-Road program allows concerned citizens and businesses to participate in the clean up.”The program has different groups who volunteer to pick up trash along a stretch of road,” Johnson said. The county provides volunteers with vests, trash bags and pamphlets that explain the program. The volunteers pick up trash along a one-to-two mile stretch of road four times a year, and the Colorado Department of Transportation picks up the bags.Signs are posted with the volunteers or group’s name at both ends of the road in recognition of their efforts to keep the area clean, Johnson said.No matter how hard they try, though, an increasing population is adding to the wayward debris.The litter problem has gotten worse in the past five years because of population growth, Allen said. The Springs Keep America Beautiful program is present at special events, such as Spring Spree, Territory Days, Bike Fest, Fan Fest and the Fallen Firefighters Memorial, to focus on newcomers and others.”We love to talk to people and help them solve any issue or problem they have with recycling and trash issues,” she said.The Springs program provides a juvenile program, which includes opportunities for those who need to complete court-ordered community service. Any child or teen who wants to volunteer or receive school credit is welcome in the program. And so are parents who are interested in educating their kids about community service.The organization also helps with “large or small-scale recycling programs for businesses or schools by giving material to help you get going or giving a talk on recycling,” Allen said.While governments try to figure out other ways to resolve the issue, Allen advised the three R’s of litter mitigation: “Reduce, reuse, recycle.”Editor’s note: The NFH received numerous calls and e-mails regarding the litter problem in the area after it was addressed in the Monkey Chronicles. If you’ve got ideas on how to solve the problem, let us know. One of our Falcon residents asked us to publish all the names of the home builders in the area – just in case you find some litter and you want to call them directly to clean it up. Here you go.Home BuildersAllure Homes, Ltd. 522-0808Anthony Homes 495-4934Anderson Homes 495-9300Beazer Homes 632-2201The Campbell Companies, Ltd. 495-6147Classic Homes 592-9333Copperleaf Homes 598-8900Creek Stone Homes 593-1515Engle Homes, Inc. 632-3257Gendron Homes, Inc. 494-0661Hallmark Building Co. 531-5300John Laing Homes 272-3154Lankford Fulton Homes 491-7888Lennar Homes 593-8583Majestic Custom Homes, Inc. 598-5883Nobility Homes 314-0355Premier Homes, Inc. 494-8141Pulte Homes 536-4200Richmond American Homes 260-0684R.M.C. Homes, Inc. 499-4000Vantage Homes 534-0984General ContractorsCMC Group, Inc. 303-741-4500Hammers Construction, Inc. 570-1599J.E. Dunn Construction, Co. 471-0217Nunn Construction, Inc. 599-7710Schauer Construction Co., Inc. 548-9455T-Bone Construction, Inc. 570-1456Thomas General Contractors 632-9325Access residential and commercial contractors at the Pikes Peak Regional Building Website,