The following letter was sent to Rep. Bryan Shupe, R-Milford, with a copy provided to the Cape Gazette for publication.
A year or so ago, you requested ideas from the residents of Sussex County on how to curb the trash and litter along our highways.
I responded to your request, and after some prodding, I received a phone call from you. I gave you some ideas, which I know for a fact work. You told me you would look into implementing some of the ideas. To date, none of the ideas have come to fruition, or been mentioned on any of your social inferences.
One of them was to implement a covered-load law. I found out later, Sussex already has a covered-load law. It just isn't being enforced. What a travesty. This is one of the more common offenders of the trash problem along the highways. I followed a trash truck northbound on Route 1 last week; it was uncovered and trash was blowing out of the roll-off container. And you wonder why there is so much trash along the highway. If you posted an officer at the transfer stations and ticketed everyone that came in with an uncovered load, you would see it stop.
Another one of my proposals was to implement a bottle bill, charging a $0.05 deposit on every beverage container, including liquor. Think about this, for every container not turned in for the deposit, that $0.05 becomes the property of the state. You do the math! Of course, redemption centers would have to be established for the returns. But that is minor in the scheme of things.
I urge you to make this a priority. The trash and garbage along our roads is getting ridiculous. The subdivisions being built, the people moving to Delaware, the more trash along our highways. Something needs to be done sooner rather than later.
The road I live on has become the private dumping grounds for whomever. There are mattresses, bags and bags of garbage, including bags of garbage from a catering business, and countless beverage containers, including liquor containers.
You've just been re-elected. How about taking care of this issue that will benefit all of your constituents and the entire state?
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