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By Martinsville BULLETIN STAFF REPORTS -
Martinsville attorney R. Reid Young III wants the Henry County and Martinsville governments to mount a fight against litter. And if they won’t, he will.Young outlined some of his ideas for battling litter at Tuesday’s Martinsville City Council meeting, and he will do the same at the Sept. 27 meeting of the Henry County Board of Supervisors.“I see it (litter) every day,” said Young, who lives on Terry’s Mountain. There, he said, he picks up a feed bag of garbage every week.He added that he has talked to his neighbors and others about the litter problem, and “I hope to get a group excited enough to do something” about it.Litter is a problem throughout the county and city, he said, singling out the new Dick & Willie Passage. “It’s an embarrassment,” he added.“No one is going to relocate in the area as long as it looks like a pigsty,” Young said. “There aren’t going to be new jobs. CEOs are sophisticated people” with families who have certain expectations. “No one will come as long as there’s litter everywhere.”Young has several suggestions to try to combat the problem.“The best way to resolve it is a ground roots program beginning in the schools,” he said, suggesting that the governments appoint a liaison with the schools to work on the issue.Awards could be given to schools that tackle the litter issue, contests could be held and students could be recognized for their efforts, he said.Also, “there has got to be a reward system put in place ... money paid to tipsters to help stop this (littering),” Young said. “It’s not being reported as much as it should.”He is proposing that people who litter have their driver’s licenses suspended and/or be ordered to do community service picking up trash before they could get their licenses back. If trash is thrown on private property, he said the property owner should be able to charge the suspect with trespassing.Currently, Young said he believes littering in Martinsville is a Class 1 misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $2,500 and/or 12 months in jail. He thinks the penalties should be stiffer.“The only thing to do is treat it like the Canadians do. If you litter on the roads in Canada, there is a $2,000 fine,” he said, adding that people do not litter there.Young suggested that the area’s judges be approached about imposing stiffer fines and sentences, and if the law needs to be changed to do that, so be it.“We need to encourage reporting of areas that are chronic problems, dumps,” he said, and also need to require landfill owners to monitor their sites. If they do not clean the areas up, liens could be placed on the property to force the issue, Young added.In addition, he said businesses should be required to keep areas around their trash receptacles litter-free or they could lose them, and he would like to see churches get involved in the effort.Young said he wants to see the local governments fight litter by posting signs and taking other steps. “If they don’t do it, we’ll get together a group” that will, he added.Young’s comments to city council Tuesday were limited because they occurred during the business from the floor session. He said council members told him they want him to return to more fully discuss his ideas.
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