Why do we tolerate roadside trash?
Trash is just something we live with here in the Natural State. It’s part of who we are, or our roadsides wouldn’t look like a city dump.
We turn a blind eye when we should be appalled by the mountains of trash that line our roads and city streets. But what is even more distressing is that we have the potential to be a lush, vibrant state with gorgeous trees, shrubs, plants and beautiful roadsides.
A number of years ago we were in Switzerland and ended up in a small town where they were having a military parade. Its history went back to crossbows and lances and moved ahead to Swiss Special Forces. We loved it, but something happened that stuck in my mind.
Midway through the parade I saw a girl who looked about 10 years old walk over to a vendor and buy an ice cream bar. The ice cream was wrapped, and when she unwrapped it she looked for a trash can to put the wrapper. There wasn’t one in sight, so she neatly folded the wrapper and put it in her pocket.
When the parade was over and we were leaving I noticed there wasn’t a scrap of trash where thousands of people had stood and watched the parade. Contrast that to the way any of our festival grounds look after the festival is over. I was festival chairman of El Dorado’s MusicFest for five years, and after each festival trash was everywhere.
But festival trash is nothing compared to the roadside trash I see when I do my walk-jog on the 167 bypass in
El Dorado. There are some stretches, usually when there’s an exit coming up in less than 100 yards, where there is every imaginable piece of garbage; there is very little that some people won’t throw out of their car or pickup. I am shocked at what I see every day when I walk.
Here’s my theory: The time it takes to drive from a convenience store on North West Avenue in El Dorado to the stop sign on Calion Road by my house is the time it takes some folks to drink a Bud Light and toss the can. I’ve been thinking about putting out a trash bin with a beer target.
We have become so used to living with trash that we don’t see it. Like being color-blind, we are becoming “trash insensitive” or “garbage-blind,” or maybe we’re saying, “Yeah, we’ve got a lot of trash. So what?”
Drunks can’t sober up until they say, “I’m a drunk,” and we can’t have a quality state until we call trash “trash” and start doing something about it. So do something!
At least let your voice be heard and heard and heard again until folks stop lining our roads with beer cans, plastic bottles, and plastic straws. Bare potholed streets are edged with stores that haven’t seen a paint brush in 40 years with utility poles taking the place of trees, and there are parking lots that must be in an ugly contest along with abandoned signs and overgrown weedy lots.
I’m not talking about someone else’s town; I’m talking about your town, and my town, and here in El Dorado, we have a couple of real eyesore streets. By far one of the ugliest is Hillsboro Street, Highway 82 Business. I know the state Department of Transportation has great plans to widen the street, but give me a break. Those plans have been on the books longer than a coon’s age, and for you city folks, that’s about
10 years. What will we have when it’s finished?
A wide, ugly street.
The rat’s nest of utility lines that need to go underground and hundreds of God-awful signs serve to exclaim “Trashy streets are us.”
Sure, landscaping costs a few bucks, but national surveys prove the money spent on trees or landscaping is paid back by increased business in the retail stores that line those streets. We’re not going to see a lot of painting and sprucing up along our ugly streets, but how about just planting some crape myrtles? And don’t chop them off every year. Crape myrtles aren’t poodle bushes; they are trees that will get to be 30 feet tall, so quit committing crape murder.
But let’s get real. The reason we have ugly streets and four-lane highway medians is because we put up with those eyesores. Those mowed highway median right-of-ways are one step away from being a bare parking lot.
You probably think our mowed right-of-ways are how right-of-ways should look, but you would be wrong. When Louisiana, Texas, and even Mississippi start making our right-of-ways look bad, then you know we’re making our state the poster child for ugliness. We have hundreds of miles of medians where planting trees should be a priority. But hey, you don’t ever have to worry about driving off the road and hitting a tree, because ArDOT clears way more rightof-ways than is needed.
Maybe those men on the state Highway Commission could use a woman to help with highway beautification, but I guess the governor is saying, “There are no qualified women to put on the Commission.” Or maybe he’s saying, “This is a male-only Commission.” or “Women don’t want to be on the Highway Commission.” Which is it, Governor?
But the governor deserves a big atta-boy for putting a woman on the state Game and Fish Commission. That only took 100 years, so I guess one day one of the governor’s grandchildren will finally put a woman on the Highway Commission.