ROCKDALE, Texas (KRHD) — A local non-profit and the City of Rockdale partnered to place more trash cans around downtown Rockdale with goals of curbing littering.
- The City of Rockdale and non-profit Rockdale Earth Day received a $2,500 grant from the Central Texas Council of Governments to help limit littering.
- It's considered a special project for Rockdale Earth Day, which is celebrating 10 years of service dedicated to beautifying Rockdale.
- Now, there are 30 new trash cans placed around downtown Rockdale.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
"Saturday, we set up for our Fourth of July parade. I've tried to peek in just to see if I find anything in them," David Melton, a chairperson of Rockdale Earth Day, said.
It's been a few days since David Melton's organization set out these trash cans.
"And a couple of plastic bottles and looks like a piece of something," he said.
It's there to curb littering, a special project for non-profit Rockdale Earth Day's 10th Anniversary.
"In the 10 years of our existence, part of our mission, part of our goals is to beautify the city," Melton said.
Each year about 362 million pieces of litter end up along highways in Texas.
Nationally, most trash is found in rural areas.
"We like many communities have a littering issue that we're trying to address... we have a few areas that are especially troublesome, and we're always working to try to clean them up," he said.
So, they're working with the city to place about 30 cans in the area.
It's funded by a $2,500 grant from the Central Texas Council of Governments.
"So, one of the things I think it's important to do is make it easy for people to do the right thing, which is either to dispose of their trash or to recycle, and if you don't have containers out there, it's kind of hard to argue with somebody," Barbara Holly, the emeritus city manager, said.
But despite having more cans, I noticed some residents still littered, so the question is —
"Do you think these trash receptacles with help with this problem?"
"Ultimately, we can only hope. We believe that good deeds can be viral," Melton said.
