Summit targets high cost of Louisiana's litter

About $91 million is spent cleaning up litter in Louisiana every year, according to Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, who highlighted an eight-parish regional summit on litter Monday at LSU Eunice.
“I remember the president of Nissan Motors stood up at a press conference 30 years ago before I was in politics, and he said, ‘We decided we’re going to build our plant in Jackson, Mississippi, instead of New Orleans East because if you don’t care about keeping your community clean, I don’t want my people living here,’” Nungesser said.
There were about 50 people in attendance at the Dr. Anthony Mumphrey Center for about four hours focusing on Louisiana’s litter issue. 
Eunice Mayor Scott Fontenot said, “We have eight different parishes represented here today. Evangeline, St. Landry, Acadia, Iberia, Vermilion, Lafayette, St. Martin, and St. Mary. So thank you all for coming. 
“You know, when we talk about litter in the state, you can’t go anywhere and not see it, and it’s kind of sad because we’re so proud of who we are and where we live and what we’re all about. I think we need to do a better job, and I know that’s why we’re all here today,” he said in welcoming the attendees. 
Nungesser said, “We’re doing these little summits all over the state to learn about how we can ... give the local communities what they need to clean up Louisiana and keep it clean.”
Nungesser has a proposal to split the local fine for littering three ways. A third would go to enforcement, a third to courts and a third to the parish or city to clean up letter.
 “It’s split so much now it really doesn’t benefit anybody financially to write a ticket so we’re hoping that we can change that because less than 20% of the people actually litter and if you get a ticket for litter or you pick up litter for a day you’re 80% less likely to litter,” he said. 
“I couldn’t be more excited in Governor Landry’s support in extending that task force which includes all the state agencies to keep our foot on the gas until we finally clean up Louisiana,” he said. 
Nungesser said when Keep Louisiana Beautiful was moved into his  office there were about 50 groups cleaning up Louisiana. “For the last two years, for the first time ever, groups in all 64 parishes cleaned up and I think we had a little over 750 groups last year.”
Susan Russell, executive director of Keep Louisiana Beautiful, said a litter study was done recently for the first time in about 14 years.  
“We identified 137 sites throughout our state. These were interstates, U.S. roadways and LA roadways and we had crews that walked every inch of these sites and they documented what was there,” she said. 
“What we were able to document is at any given time there’s about a 143 million pieces of litter on our roadways, and 24% tobacco, 13% beverage containers, 10% of construction debris,” she said. 
“We were also able to document that about 53% of this is coming from motorists, 17% from unsecured loads, and about 9% from garbage trucks,” she said. 
Beer cans, fast food debris, soft drink cans are among the debris on the roads, she said. 
“So as the lieutenant governor mentioned, $91 million, that’s about what we’re spending. We’re spending it on the back end and not on the front end in prevention and education. And unfortunately, the bulk of this burden is on the backs of our local governments, our municipalities, and our parishes,” she said. 
Donna Baltakis, Keep Eunice Beautiful director, said “Over the last few years, through Leaders Against Litter and Love the Boot, we’ve collected each year between 630 pounds and 1,260 pounds of litter, recycled between 78 and 235 pounds. And we saved our city between $1,800 all the way to $4,200. per event by using our volunteers to pick up trash, instead of having the city do it.”
Basile Mark Denette, said litter does not affect Basile’s town budget. But, he said, “It reflects what kind of community we live in and the kind of people that live there. And I think over the years that people have lost their morals and just the pride of where they live and how they live.”