Everyone can fight littering with Nobody Trashes Tennessee | Opinion – Tennessean

Latest phase of campaign targets Gen Z and millennial Tennesseans to get them to reduce their own littering and get their peers involved.

Clay Bright| Guest columnist

Video of trash in Cumberland River raises environmental concerns

Clarksville man Arthur Maxwell saw a "ridiculous" amount of trash in the Cumberland River when he took his 12-year-old son fishing Monday.

Arthur Maxwell, Arthur Maxwell

Tennessee's transportation system is recognized as one of the best in the nation. In July, CNBC's annual study, "America's Top States for Business," ranked the state as fourth in the country for infrastructure. Tennessee's 96,167 miles of public roads play an essential role in driving the economy and connecting communities and families. The state is also known for its natural beauty, with 4,022 miles of public roads classified as scenic. As the Volunteer State, our unique character is built on our history of stewardship and service. Tennesseans are proud. What is not a source of pride is our litter problem.

Litter along Tennessee's public roads has implications beyond just being an eyesore and detracting from the state's natural beauty. It's an enormous burden to the state with impacts on public health and safety, the environmentand the economy. Public education and cleaning up this litter along our public roads costs the Tennessee Department of Transportation $19 million annually. Since 1983, a special tax levied on soft drinksand malt beverages has funded these efforts. These are funds that could potentially be used for road maintenance and infrastructure improvements.

To determine the scope of the litter problem along our roadways, TDOT conducted research in 2006 and 2016. This statewide research included the "Visible Litter Study," a pioneering field study of litter along TDOT rights of way. The findings revealed that while the state of littering in Tennessee has improved significantly since 2006 dropping by 43%there are still 100 million pieces of litter on the state's roadways at any given time, and 18%of this litter ends up in streams and waterways as pollution.

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The study also showed that 28%of litter is intentional, meaning people purposefully tossed trash right out of their vehicles. Beverage containers, lidsand straws were revealed as the biggest problem with deliberate litter. The remaining 72%is considered unintentional litter, includingvehicle debris and trashflying out of uncovered vehicles.

Nobody Trashes Tennessee, the state's litter prevention campaign managed by TDOT, is a comprehensive, statewide communications operationthat tells the story of litter on Tennessee's roadways and its impact on public health and safety, the ecosystemand the economy. By juxtaposing the beauty of Tennessee with the ugliness of litter, NTT leverages intense feelings of state pride to activate Tennesseans to become a part of the solution. The campaign provides resources and opportunities for residents to take both personal and volunteer actions to help prevent and reduce litter.

Research conducted in May that helped guide the next phase of the NTT campaign includes a quantitative survey to determine baseline awareness of the litter problem and focus groups to help understand attitudes towards litter and to test litter prevention messaging. The campaign also includes expanded statewide public education initiatives and additional resources and support for all of TDOT's 95 county partners,who in 2020 alone and despite COVID-19 restrictions removed 21 million pounds of litter from roadways and cleaned up 4,023 illegal roadside dump sites.

TDOT is excited about this new phase. We've developed a creative approach to directly engage with our Gen Z and millennial target audiences, using entertaining content that draws them into our story and taps into their environmentally conscious perspectives and attitudes. By showing them the scope of the problem and the damage caused by litter, we believe we can push them to take action to not only reduce their littering behavior but also to get their peers involved positioning them as champions and encouraging them to volunteer to work on the larger issue. Based on our analysis of these audiences' demographic and psychographic profiles, they are already primed to take cause-related actions, and our next phase is designed to tap into this potential.

Learn more about the state's litter reduction and education efforts and how to join the movement to reduce littering at NobodyTrashesTennessee.com. Two ways to get involved include the Adopt-A-Highway Program and reporting littering incidents through the Tennessee Litter Hotline (1-877-8LITTER).

Clay Bright is Commissioner of Transportation, TDOT.

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Everyone can fight littering with Nobody Trashes Tennessee | Opinion - Tennessean