Area state legislators pick up trash along Rt. 422
LIMERICK >> Some familiar faces could be seen recently picking up trash just off Route 422.
State Rep. Joe Ciresi along with other area state legislators, including Rep. Melissa Shusterman, Rep. Joe Webster, Rep. Mike Zabel, Rep. Ben Sanchez and PennDOT leaders, took some time out of their day to clean up litter strewn across areas just off the highway.
“PennDOT in Southeastern Pennsylvania and our five county region known as PennDOT District 6 spends $5.2 million picking up trash and debris along highways. That coupled with $13 million statewide has become quite an epidemic,” said Ken McClain, district executive for PennDOT District 6. “Just in Southeastern Pennsylvania we can resurface roughly 25 miles of road with that $5.2 million that we’re spending on trash cleanup.”
Upon hearing these numbers recently, Ciresi approached McClain to arrange a cleanup and has more plans for reducing litter that leads to other problems.
“Our goal as legislators is to bring this issue back to all Pennsylvanians. When Ken gave a presentation in Delaware Count a couple months ago and brought up $5.2 million, I stopped him in the presentation. He wasn’t even there for that. He was talking about potholes and infrastructure,” said Ciresi, a freshman Democrat.
Ciresi said after asking about the money spent on littering, McClain added that sending crews
out to clean up trash prevents PennDOT from sending out crews to do other work including repairing potholes.
“We started talking about this and I said I’d like to take this on with our legislators and do a whole initiative across the state that talks about litter,” said Ciresi. “When we look at almost $14 million across the state of Pennsylvania is going toward our employees to pick up trash that other people are throwing out or not paying attention to, this is an area that we can pick up that $14 million and put it back into our roads, our highways, our potholes. It will give them the resources they need across the state. And it’s good for the environment.”
Additionally, Ciresi says he plans to start a litter caucus that would involve speaking to other legislators across the state to come up with different ideas about how to pick up trash and make people aware of the trash issues.
McClain added that there are a number of programs and ways residents can be a part of the effort to help prevent litter and reduce litter that has already made its way the area.
“We’ve created several programs and we encourage people to A) stop littering. B) get involved with civic organizations to help with the cleanup. There are several organized cleanups that PennDOT sponsors, one of them is called sponsor a highway or adopt a highway and then there’s the Great American cleanup which happens from March to May every year,” said McClain. “So we encourage people to stop littering, teach your kids to do the right thing and then get engaged in your community and help clean it up because it is a quality of life issue for us.”