Capsule trash 2
Originally uploaded by lasse22.
- Number of garbage trucks that would be required to contain all the annual road debris of California’s highways: 8,750
- Number of miles those garbage trucks would stretch down the highway: 45
- Lives lost in 2006 to trash on California’s highways: 155
- Amount per year that the State of California spends cleaning up highway trash: $55 million
- Percentage of trash along the highways that was “unintentional” (gum wrappers, cigarettes, soda cans) in 1986: 66%
- Percentage of trash that was “intentional” (mostly from unsecured loads – mattresses, sinks, produce) in 2006: 66%
- Number of pieces of plastic trash, on average, found in the average Georgia highway mile: 464
- Number of traffic accidents in North America caused by litter that is dumped by motorists or falls out of vehicles: 25,000
From Debris on Nation’s Highways, Long an Eyesore, Is Growing as a Hazard in this morning’s New York Times.
“It’s really a problem of individual motorists not understanding the aerodynamics of what wind can do to a mattress," says Scott Osberg, the director of research for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
I knew those cuts in school funding would come back to bite us.
