Task force asks for more cameras to track littering
Four hunting cameras being rotated throughout Floyd County are helping to lessen littering in the community.
The idea came from Floyd County Sheriff Tim Burkhalter at a Rome-Floyd Litter and Blight Task Force meeting a few months back. He recommended using small digital cameras set up at different areas to keep track of who is illegally dumping garbage and what are some of the more common areas.
Burkhalter described the cameras as durable and said some are even able to capture images in high definition.
Even if the cameras are damaged, all of the images captured on the camera are uploaded to a cloud server for storage automatically.
The cameras are placed in areas where people have regularly reported illegal dumping or littering. Sometimes they’re next to sites that are off of main roads, such as Turner McCall Boulevard or off of Walker Mountain Road near the landfill.
Usually when someone is caught on the cameras and are identified by their car or license plate, they’re told by either the sheriff’s office or Floyd County Police Department they have 24 hours to go clean it up or get a ticket. A majority of the time, the offenders go back and clean up what they dumped.
However, they have made 17 court cases against people for illegal dumping in undesignated areas.
Because of the success of the cameras, the task force is looking to the city and county governments to fund more.
Floyd County Commissioner Wright Bagby and Rome City Commissioner Randy Quick said they will both approach their commissions about getting more cameras to place in both city and county limits. Right now, they’re unsure about how many more they want for the areas.