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YouTube:  A 2x4 is flipped up from the road and crashes through a woman's windshield.

Efforts to Reduce Litter

Keep North Carolina Beautiful
Keep NC Beautiful engages and supports individuals and organizations to keep North Carolina beautiful through litter prevention, beautification and waste reduction programs.

Swat-A-Litterbug
Report a litterer through the N.C. Dept. of Transportation's Swat-A-Litterbug program.

Swat-A-Litterbug Program
The Swat-A-Litterbug Program is  administered by the North Carolina Department of Transportation Office of Beautification Programs. Littering North Carolina roadways, whether deliberate or unintentional, can end with their personal commitment to stop.  Let DOT know when a person is littering by contacting the Office of Beautification Programs.

City of Fayetteville's Cigarette Litter Prevention Month - April 2014
The goal of Cigarette Litter Prevention Month is to curb the amount of cigarette butts that litter Fayetteville's roadside and wash into city storm drains. 

Cigarettes are an unsightly form of litter that not only decrease property values, but also leach toxic chemicals into area streams and rivers. Cigarette butts are designed to trap the chemicals found in cigarette smoke such as arsenic, benzene and formaldehyde.

The City of Fayetteville is asking smokers to take a moment and properly dispose of their cigarettes in ashtrays and smoking bins instead of throwing cigarette butts out their window or emptying ashtrays on city streets. It only takes a moment to be stewards of the environment and help the city become a desirable place to live and visit.

2016 Plastic BAN List 
To identify the products and packaging causing the most harm in the environment and for human health, 5 Gyres, Clean Production Action, Surfrider Foundation and UPSTREAM partnered to create the Plastics “Better-AlternativesNow” List (BAN). A growing reliance on plastic to fuel the culture of convenience is not without cost. Globally, an average of eight million tons of plastic escapes collection systems, winding up in the environment and eventually the ocean. Recent studies estimate that by the year 2050 there will be more plastic—by weight—than fish in the ocean. Plastic acts as a toxic conveyor belt, sponging pollutants from surrounding air and water into the tissues of everything that eats it. 

Stories:

Five-gallon Bucket In Road Causes Fuel Spill, Monday, April 21, 2014
Wilmington -- On Highway 421 North, a freight truck hit a 5-gallon bucket in the roadway which disconnected the truck's fuel line and 50 gallons of diesel fuel was released.  The driver pulled into a parking lot and a cleanup team was called.  The team built an earthen damn to control the spillage. 

Loose loads, dangerous roads, Friday, April 11, 2014.
Unsecured load almost causes accident Alamance County -- On Interstate 85 South, a pickup truck was traveling over 70 mph when a large cardboard box flew out of its bed, hitting the windshield of the car behind it. The driver swerved as a reflex, almost hitting another car in the adjacent lane. Fortunately, the driver was able to regain control quickly and no other cars were hit by the flying debris. The box was empty, so no damage was done to the windshield. There was a lot of traffic traveling close together at a high rate of speed, so an unsecured load could have easily caused an accident with injuries.   

Do you have a litter story to share?  If so, please use our Contact Us form and select Communications Office as the recipient.  Let us know if you have a photo, too!