OHIO — When all the snow and ice melts every spring it reveals a very ugly truth: Ohioans have a littering problem. 

What You Need To Know

  • Litter is annually plaguing Ohio’s Interstate’s and roadways

  • The Ohio Department of Transportation spends $4 million each year cleaning up the mess 

  • ODOT collects 400,000 bags of garbage each year

  • ODOT’s employees are the ones feeling the brunt of the workload
  • It's 100% preventable if people stop littering, ODOT said

Every year, the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) collects 400,000 bags of trash from interstates and roadways.

ODOT Spokesman Matt Bruning said every year, they face the same challenge.

“None of this trash should be here,” Bruning said. “There’s no reason for it. It’s either because someone was lazy, and they decided to chuck it out of the window, or because someone didn’t secure their load of something they’re hauling in the back of their truck. It’s all preventable.”

The continual buildup of highway litter is taking a toll on ODOT’s staff.

ODOT’s Donald Campbell is tired — tired of picking up other people’s trash off the roadways and interstates. 

“This is probably the worst part and one of the most dangerous,” Campbell said. “We’re out here with no, basically, trucks to protect us and nothing to protect us from motorists on the side of the roads, people driving down the highway.” 

Bruning said it costs $4 million annually to pick up other people’s garbage off the interstate. 

ODOT District 8 Highway Management Administrator Doug Gruver said that funding could’ve been used in other ways, such as fixing potholes or guardrails, but instead it’s spent on the laborious task of picking up trash.

“This is probably less than a week’s worth of trash being picked up off of either I-75 or I-71, or just some of the local roadways that ODOT maintains,” Gruver said. 

While Ohio’s correctional facilities do help clean this mess typically, over the past year the responsibility has mainly landed on ODOT’s shoulders due to the pandemic.

“Our same people, we don’t necessarily have a lot of special crews that just do litter,” he said. “So it’s the same folks that take care of everything else, including the ones that plow the snow and put salt down during our snow and ice operations, are the same crews most of the time.”

Gruver said annually, District 8 spends $600K annually on litter cleanup. That could have funded any of the following:

  • Installed 1,000 feet of drilled shaft retaining wall
  • Replaced 32 culverts
  • Cleaned 800 bridges
  • Cleaned 57,100 feet of ditch line
  • Repaired 10,900 feet of guardrail
  • Placed 1,000 tons of asphalt for pavement repairs
  • Purchase four new snow plow trucks
  • Purchased seven new tractors and mowers

Bruning said the most disheartening part of this ordeal is ODOT’s crews will clean a given area, but in just a matter of weeks the garbage will return as if they were never there.

“We know that there’s a trash can at every single person’s home, at a gas station, at a rest area, and most restaurants,” Bruning said. “No matter where you’re going there’s more than likely a proper place for you to dispose of the trash in your vehicle. We just ask people to do that so these guys can do what they wanna do, and that’s make our roads safer."

Campbell hopes people can break the habit of littering because it’s the right thing to do. 

“If you’re not going to do it at home in your own front yard, don’t do it on the side of the state,” Campbell said.