By Mary Catherine Brooks
“Every bit of trash we pick up, somebody has thrown it out,” emphasized Wyoming County Commission president Silas Mullins. “That’s what gets me — somebody threw it out.”
One of Mullins’ campaign promises was to clean up the county, and he is trying to do just that.
“Slowly, but surely, we’re changing things,” he said.
Of the 44 illegal dump sites, some of them decades old, identified when he took office, 12 have been cleaned up.
There have also been hundreds of abandoned vehicles hauled away and about two dozen abandoned house trailers cleared.
“That’s from all over the county,” Mullins said.
He isn’t doing it alone, he points out. The massive effort includes other officials, volunteers, and organizations.
Mullins regularly oversees non-violent offenders sentenced to the Wyoming County Day Report program. Among those projects are cleaning trash from roadsides and streams, along with other public places.
“The litter officer is writing more tickets,” he said.
“More and more people are stepping forward — people are getting tired of trashy neighbors.”
The litter officer writes five-day, 10-day, and 14-day warnings to offenders, depending on how much garbage is at issue and the means of the offender to eliminate the problem, Mullins explained.
If the trash hasn’t been removed by the end of the warning period, the offender is cited. The result can be a fine in excess of $300 and/or sentencing to community service, most of the time through the Day Report program, Mullins said.
And one day of picking up trash along the roadside is worse punishment than the fine, Mullins believes.
Garbage is costing the county nearly $200,000 annually, or between $12,000 and $15,000 per month, just to transfer what comes into the four transfer stations to the Raleigh County Landfill, Mullins said.
“When I came on as commissioner, we were losing about $50,000 a year. Now that’s down to about $30,000,” he said. The savings has come through increased recycling and other projects.
“We’re never going to break even,” Mullins believes.
“We did have a free day here, but that overtaxed our system. After the free day, we’d have to close down for two or three days just to take care of what came in on the free day.”
Officials are working to make recycling easier, and more convenient, for residents.
The bins, now located at the airport, will be moved to where the airplane hangars are now located. That will be done as a result of FAA requirements.
Additionally, a recycling center is planned at the former DOH site in Rock View. The offices located in the building now will stay put, and the recycling center will occupy the lower portion of the facility.
Currently, the county is also providing cardboard bins for businesses across the county which are interested in obtaining them.
All but two of the county’s schools have recycling programs under way, he said. Those two schools opted not to participate.
Mullins believes it is important to change the way people think about trash, to educate them about the importance of recycling, to remind them how accumulating garbage can adversely impact residents’ health, and unsightly litter can slow economic development.
