Keep Aiken County Beautiful working to combat area's litter problem

Feb. 28—Whiskey Road is a little cleaner after volunteers came out Saturday morning to pick up litter.

The effort was organized by Keep Aiken County Beautiful, with 30 volunteers spending an hour up and down the roadside picking up enough trash to fill 90 bags.

The cleanup started at the corner of Whiskey and Powderhouse roads and worked towards New Ellenton, ending at Chime Bell Church Road. Many passing cars honked at the volunteers to cheer them on, with the driver often adding a wave.

Kandace Cave, program coordinator for KACB, greeted everyone with a smile and said she was excited to see the support for the still-young program started in 2019.

"We love that the community is all energized and has rallied around cleaning up this litter in our community," Cave said. "I think it's a great thing. We need help from everyone, all kinds of citizens and community members."

Pat Dunlop and Janice Fisher were two of the volunteers who came out to help Saturday morning. Both of them agreed that the effort was needed.

"I'm sick of looking at the trash," Dunlop said.

"People should be taking better care of Aiken," Fisher added. "People should be taking better care of everything."

Dunlop said she was glad to see this opportunity because she'd been wanting to help for a while but didn't know what to do.

"So, as soon as this opportunity came up, we were in," Dunlop said.

Cave said the pandemic stymied the group's efforts a bit in 2020. An affiliate of Keep America Beautiful and Keep South Carolina Beautiful, KACB held eight litter cleanups with 117 volunteers who picked up over 4,500 pounds of litter.

Besides those organized pickups, volunteers across the county logged over 6,229 hours during 2020 to remove over 32,050 pounds of litter, 595 pounds of which was recycled.

Samuel "Herbie" Ford, one of Aiken County's litter enforcement officers, drove up and down the road to try and keep traffic in the left lane for the safety of the volunteers.

At one point, Ford issued a warning to a driver who didn't have loose items in a trailer secured. Ford gave the driver trash bags to put the items in, saying afterwards that littering is a behavior that has to be changed via learning.

KACB is working on this change by trying educate residents and change their behaviors, so that the litter doesn't keep coming back time and time again.

One targeted group is Aiken County's youth, as littering is often a behavior that is learned at a young age; the program engaged with 87 children during 2020.

Cave said they want to reach more young people this year through summer camps and getting back into schools once that's allowed.

The Adopt-A-Highway program, part of KACB, also aims to increase its reach in Aiken County during 2021.

The litter pickup program allows groups to adopt a 2-mile stretch of a road and agree to remove litter from that area at least once per quarter. The goal for 2021 is to encourage more faith based organizations to join, Cave said.

Currently, churches make up 4.1% of active and reporting AAH groups.

During 2020, 885 AAH volunteers spent almost 254 hours picking up 26,325 pounds of litter, which equaled 1,755 bags, across 214 miles of Aiken County roads.

Mallory Coffey, state leader for Keep South Carolina Beautiful, said that as Aiken County has grown, the increase in people has led to an increase in litter. Thus, there's more of a behavior to change.

"It's not going to happen overnight," Coffey said. "It didn't get this way overnight."

However, Coffey said, KACB is working on setting a standard that Aiken County is not a litter area and getting everyone to do their part.

"We already believe that Aiken County is a beautiful place to live, work and play and we just want to make sure we're doing all we can to keep it that way," Cave said.

For more information, email KACB@aikencountysc.gov.