Fayetteville saw 133 tons of litter in 2022. Here's what the city is doing about it.
City crews collected 133 tons of litter from Fayetteville streets in 2022, Parks and Recreation Director Michael Gibson said Wednesday. While some City Council members say they receive constant complaints about litter, Gibson isn’t sure there’s much his staff can do.
Gibson spoke to the City Council at its Oct. 2 work session after requests from Mayor Mitch Colvin and Councilwoman Kathy Jensen for city staff to research littering in Fayetteville. According to a Parks and Recreation presentation shared with the council, 2 tons of litter are picked up from Fayetteville’s public areas and roadways each week.
When Colvin asked council members to raise their hands if they regularly receive calls or hear complaints about litter and trash, at least five of the nine members present did so, including Colvin.
"This is a common thread," Colvin said as he looked around the room.
In the Parks and Recreation presentation, staff said an additional $185,000 would cover the cost of hiring more workers to collect litter through January — but as City Manager Doug Hewett said Oct. 2, finding the money is the bigger issue.
“I need to make sure that council understands the budgetary constraints that we are under,” Hewett said. “I cannot apologize for the fact that we do not have the money and the resources… The pressures that we have in the budget are unreal.”
'It's not like we're not out there'
Gibson said Wednesday that he wouldn't necessarily call littering a problem in Fayetteville.
“I don’t know if it’s a problem,” Gibson said. “People have always littered. I don’t think it just started last year.”
In fact, Gibson said, litter is an unfortunate reality of living in a bigger city.
“I think every large city has to deal with it,” he said. “You put up your signs, you put up your cameras, anything that you can do to try to curb the behavior, but I am perplexed sometimes at how people want to eliminate the behavior. I just don’t know if we have enough money to eliminate it.”
Gibson said that he has at least 18 people on his staff dedicated to picking up trash.
“I think the biggest misconception is that we have a pick-up problem,” he said. “I always tell the joke about, I can’t tell you that there won’t be trash, it just won’t be the same trash.”
Gibson told council members during the work session Oct. 2 that his staff does its best to address littering.
“It’s not like we’re not out there,” he said, noting that he believed Fayetteville was the only city in the state using all-terrain vehicles to pick up litter.
Gibson said Wednesday that while litter can be found throughout the city, main streets like Raeford Road, Bragg Boulevard, Owen Drive and Ramsey Street are particular areas of focus because they get higher volumes of traffic.
At the Oct. 2 work session, Colvin asked Gibson to solicit proposals from outside contractors to take on some of the Parks and Recreation Department’s mowing work. Gibson said Wednesday that the goal with that is to allow his staff to focus more on litter removal instead of mowing.
In the meantime, Gibson said, the most that the city can do is continue to educate people on why littering is harmful.
“Please do not litter,” he said. “Just that simple. Don’t throw trash out the window.”
Got a tip for a follow-up on this story? Government watchdog reporter Lexi Solomon can be reached at ABSolomon@gannett.com or 910-481-8526.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: How Fayetteville, NC is addressing litter
