Tennessee Trash Top Story

The numbers tell a trashy story. Tennessee spends $11,000,000 a year to pick up litter. In a survey of people who live in Tennessee, 48%, almost half, say they have knowingly thrown trash on the street.

Reducing those numbers is the goal of anti-litter campaigns like the one Tennessee started in January. Anti-litter public service announcements air on television and radio stations. Stop Litter billboards and a website help spread the word.

"They've done it so much and so long they don't even think about it twice," said anti-litter advocate Byron Chesney of Knoxville. "They just roll down the window and chuck it out like it's nothing."
Chesney started his own anti-litter website several years ago to educate people: www.tennesseetrash.org

"I think a lot of them sometimes don't even realize what they're doing. And then when you call them out on it they way, whoa, maybe I shouldn't be doing that," he said...read entire article and watch video HERE.

TennesseeTrash.org exclusive: Aug. 29, 2007: Tennessee Trash has discovered an illegal dump site on Mascot Rd. in rural East Knox County. The dump site is on a gravel pull-off on the side of the road, just west of the locally famous Mascot reptile rock. Old tires, bags of clothes, construction material, and household trash, has been dumped behind large rocks along side the road. It appears that this illegal dumping has been going on for quite a while. I will attempt to return to the dump site for a day of clean-up. I will post updates as they occur. Click here to see some pics of the illegal dump site in Mascot, TN. Read more here.

City officials want downtown Jackson to be prettier and greener, but construction and a cloudy future for parts of the area have prevented the city's Keep Jackson Beautiful program from spending money granted for that purpose almost four years ago.

Bodine Aluminum donated $25,000 to the program after the city was hit by tornados in 2003. The money was meant to help clean up and imporve the aesthetics of downtown Jackson, said Jodi Jacobs, Keep Jackson Beautiful's part-time director. Read the entire article here.

A concerned citizen in Carter County, TN sent Tennessee Trash.org a litter complaint email concerning problems at Stoney Creek in Carter County. The writer describes hundreds of beer bottles, cans, television set, laundry basket, ceiling fan, vacuum cleaner and several bags of trash that is piled up in a section between the creek and Reno Lane which is off of Blue Springs Road.

Tennessee Trash.org sent emails to the Carter County, County Mayor's office and to the Executive Director of the Carter Co. Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, March 22nd, describing the above complaint and asking for a contact, email or phone number of someone that could address this issue. As of yet there has been no reply from either office.

If you live in this area of Carter County, I urge you to contact your local officials or anyone else that could possibly help address this litter problem. Also remember, we have a criminal littering law in Tennessee, read about it here.

A retired US Navy Captain sent Tennessee Trash.org an email on Saturday, stating that she witnessed 3 young people throwing cans and litter from their boat into Tellico Lake. She wrote down their boat registration number and was trying to find a place to report this criminal littering act.

While there is no clear cut place to report such litter violations, this seems to be a clear case of criminal littering which could be reported to a local law enforcement officer, read the law here.

There is also a TVA program called "Lake Watch" that is similar to the "Neighborhood Watch" programs. They provide a number for you to call to report unsafe and suspicious activities on TVA lakes. Here is a link to that site: http://www.tva.gov/abouttva/tvap/lakewatch.htm and here is their contact information:

For more information on Lake Watch, or to report unsafe or suspicious activities, contact:

Eastern District (Knoxville): 1-800-824-3861
Northern District (Nashville): 1-800-839-0028
Western District (Muscle Shoals): 1-800-839-0003

If this does not help, you might try calling the East, TN TWRA office:

From the Tennessee.gov news website:

New Toll-Free Litter Hotline Now Available
1-877-8-LITTER PROVIDES MOTORISTS A WAY TO REPORT LITTER BUGS
Nashville, Tenn. – Tennesseans who are tired of trash along state roadways now have a new tool to report litter bugs. The Tennessee Department of Transportation announced today a new toll-free litter hotline, 1-877-8-LITTER (877-854-8837). The litter hotline is... read more here.

"Dumping for free could be thing of past" What a miserable thing to read today in the Knoxville News Sentinel. Knox Co. officials are studying the idea of charging Knox Co. residents for dumping their garbage. As if we didn't have enough litter problems already! This is going to be disastrous. It is hard enough to convince some people to go to the dump instead of burning their garbage in the backyard, or dumping it on the side of the road, this "pay-as-you-throw" program is going to be the nail in the coffin. Read entire article here.