York County residents are invited to clean up their cities with organizations Rock Hill Clean & Green and Keep York County Beautiful for an anti-littering campaign called the Polar Bear Litter Pickup.
“Polar Bear Pickup is a litter pickup we’re doing right now, and it is a 15-member volunteer Keep America Beautiful affiliate. We’re a group of volunteers that meet year-round to focus on litter reduction, recycling and beautification,” said Elizabeth Morgan, director of Rock Hill Clean & Green.
The initiative is called the Polar Bear Litter Pickup because it takes place during the winter months where the lack of vegetation lends itself to higher visibility of litter.
This is the first year that the Polar Bear Litter Pickup has taken action and its service is most needed along major roads and highways within York County.
“In South Carolina, the biggest source of litter is unsecured loads. It is against the law to operate a vehicle that allows materials to sift, fall, spill, etc. while the vehicle is in motion. There are people who will throw items out the window or who don’t store waste items properly inside the vehicle and that allows the material to escape,” said Alysen Woodruff, director of Keep York County Beautiful.
Litter is also more prevalent in the winter months due to the holidays having come to an end. During the holidays, residents likely experienced a higher-than-normal consumption of goods wrapped in plastics and other materials that pollute the environment, according to a CN2 article on the initiative.
“[Litter] is incredibly frustrating to see because it is so easy to prevent. It is not just unsightly, it can be hazardous to humans and wildlife, is expensive to clean up and negatively affects local economies. Continued population growth will only exacerbate the problem,” Woodruff said.
York County is becoming an increasingly popular place to live and while that is good news to some, for the environment, it entails an influx of environmental hazards such as litter and varying types of pollution.
“It’s very apparent as you drive, mostly on our state roads and on our larger connecting roads, that there is a lot of litter around town. So, we wanted to encourage people to get out and clean up litter, so we thought about a fun title, Polar Bear Litter Pickup, because it’s cold outside,” Morgan said.
York County residents participating in the Polar Bear Litter Pickup will receive a variety of incentives.
“Offering t-shirts to all groups (5 each) is a fun way to encourage pickup during the winter months and it will hopefully create a good habit and the group will want to clean more than once. Each group that submits a cleanup report will be entered into a drawing for an eco-prize pack,” said Woodruff.
“We are incentivizing with long sleeved t-shirts that say, ‘Polar Bear Litter Pickup: Freezing for a reason,’ with a cute polar bear… and they also get litter grabbers, bag holders, safety vests, gloves and trash bags to clean up with,” Morgan said.
All York County residents are invited to participate in this anti-littering initiative, including Winthrop University students who are not from York County. The process for signing up is quick and easy, according to Morgan.
“Many contact us through social media, either Keep York County Beautiful or Rock Hill Clean & Green. If you’re in the city of Rock Hill, you can contact me [at 803 329 7027], if you’re in the county, contact Alysen Woodruff [at 803 628 3181]…. Just let us know how many t-shirts and your sizes and where you want to clean up and if you’re not sure where you want to clean up, we have plenty of ideas and we can assign a spot,” Morgan said.
Even if one is not participating in the cleanup, all York County and Rock Hill residents are encouraged to dispose of their waste in the environmentally appropriate manner in hopes of restoring their cities to their former beauty.
“To have a successful litter prevention, there must be a behavior change,” Woodruff said. “That change emerges when the following factors work in concert: awareness, tools (such as litter pickups and proper containers), ordinances/laws and enforcement.”
Photo by Jamia Johnson
