Keep our community clean

Dear Editor:

I am concerned for the well-being of this county’s environment. With its luscious forests, calm lakes and pleasant faces, my home of Pulaski County used to be such a beautiful, pure, great place to live. But lately, it’s been going to the dumps. Literally.

While discussing environmental issues in my AP U.S. History class the other day, I was told of an event, which both surprised and disgusted me. While I was already concerned with the amount of trash on the sides of the road, I was horrified when I was informed that while following the new waste management company’s truck on Oak Hill Road the other day, someone witnessed (and counted) 25 items of waste falling out of the truck.

I had thought that our waste management company used the garbage trucks which closed in on the garbage, and that the waste was unable to fly out when the truck reached higher speeds than their usual slow residential area speeds; but I was surprised to find out that no, the new company in fact, uses the open-topped trucks. I understand completely that sometimes it’s just not possible to keep ALL the waste from escaping the truck, but couldn’t the company at least be using the trucks that would be more efficient to our community?

I appreciate the job that the waste management does, I honestly do. I am just terribly disgusted by the amount of trash that I now notice on the side of the road and in our beautiful lake. And I’m sure that the company is not entirely at fault for Pulaski County being a dump; but this county is known for its beauty, its elegance, and nothing is beautiful about garbage on the side of the road.

We could all do a little bit more to help the amount of waste that is dumped in Pulaski County, but I believe that the first step is to change the way that the waste management company handles the waste.

Maybe our community should look into investing in these closed trucks.

A cleaner community, a cleaner life for us all.



Best Regards,

Katherine Collins

SWHS Junior

P.O. Box 149

Burnside, KY 42519-0149