Clean Memphis NOW!

As a Commissioner for Memphis City Beautiful I and several other Commissioners joined staff, and community residents the other day in a street rally against littering.

The goal is to make littering a concern to all our citizens. All too often people will toss a wrapper or can on the ground without a second thought. I bet you have seen someone throw items out the window of their car. A clean Memphis is all our responsibility so here are some things you can do to help.

- Donate to Memphis City Beautiful. Your dollars will make it possible to continue working to make our City a place to be proud to live. For information on how to donate call (901) 522-1135.

- When you see a motorist littering take their license plate number and report them to City Beautiful. We will send them a letter stating that they were seen littering and that it is against the law. We include with that letter a litter bag for their car.

Like many of you I am tired of seeing my streets, my neighborhoods, my City turned into a garbage can. This has got to STOP. If you are a member of your community association, and you should be, start a clean-up drive. Right now City Beautiful is giving awards to neighborhood organizations that hold clean-up campaigns.

If you need a guest speaker from City Beautiful to come out to your organization and talk about the ways you can take back your community just call (901) 522-1135 or email me at Milton@SMAweb.org and I will be happy to meet with your residents.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Memphis use to be the cleanest city in america but look at us now. Lazy bums who don't care toss their junk on the streets. We need to make these people pay when they get caught doing that.

Anonymous said...

7.02 am

Yes! Pay is the key. Anyone caught littering should be made to pay a big fine like $100 for the first offense and $200 for the next and so on.

This is the only way you will change people habits, make it hurt in their pockets.

Anonymous said...

Driving down Union the other day and a passenger in the car in front of me throws a McDonald's bag out the window. Swear to God I felt like ramming them! Instead just blew my horn. You know it didn't help but it made me feel a little better and it beats going to jail for hit and run.

Anonymous said...

Trash cans. The city needs to put out more trash cans on the streets. I see a lot of people walking in my area and they just drop their stuff right on the ground. If there were more trash cans these people would probable use them instead. That's what I think. The city need to also just charge the tire stores disposal fee and the more tires they bring to the dump the lower their rates that would stop a lot of these tires being left on the streets. The garbage men need to do a better job of sweeping up after they dump the garbage cans. They leave garbage all over the streets.

Anonymous said...

The trash can would be good but people need to take responsibility for their own actions. My family live in North Memphis and my neighbors all ways say that the city goes out and clean out east but won't clean up here. I work in East Memphis and these people don't have garbage on their streets because they don't put any down. We got to stop blaming other people because it the no good people here that throw this stuff all around.

Anonymous said...

I take the bus to work and the people that ride it with me will leave bottles, cans, wrappers, and chewed gum all over the place. This is lazy people who don't care. They make me sick!

Anonymous said...

The City used to bring a big dumper around and leave it over night so you could dump all your trash in it. Why don't they do that anymore?

Anonymous said...

Memphis gets a bad rap i have been to other cities and many of them have the same problem.

Anonymous said...

NOTHING AND I MEAN NOTHING piss me off more than seeing people who litter! God, give us a break! If you want to live like a pig, fine, but don't make the rest of us have to live that way too!

Reginald Milton said...

4:36 pm

You are correct. Many cities are dealing with this problem.

As a Commissioner for City Beautiful it breaks my heart to see our City covered in litter.

I believe an increase in the number of street trash cans would have a huge impact on litter, but city officials complained that it would put too much of a burden on the sanitation department and cost too much.

My view is that we can't afford not to take more aggressive action. When you travel to another city do you not notice how clean it is. Litter is costing us businesses, tourist, and new homeowners. We must act.

Reginald Milton said...

4:36 pm

You are correct. Many cities are dealing with this problem.

As a Commissioner for City Beautiful it breaks my heart to see our City covered in litter.

I believe an increase in the number of street trash cans would have a huge impact on litter, but city officials complained that it would put too much of a burden on the sanitation department and cost too much.

My view is that we can't afford not to take more aggressive action. When you travel to another city do you not notice how clean it is? Litter is costing us businesses, tourist, and new homeowners. We must act.