JONES COUNTY, Ga. — It's disappointing to see litter gathering up on the sides of the road. But, a retired Jones County man says 'enough is enough,' and he's doing something about it.
George Scoville is on a mission to keep Jones County clean. He says every other day for the past two months, he's picked up litter off the sides of the road.
Thursday, Scoville walked step-by-step down Joycliff Road with a feed sack in one hand and a trash picker in the other.
“Plastic bags. Jump over here in the ditch, and there's a plate, potato chip bags with water in them. It doesn't take long to fill one of these up,” Scoville said as he put more trash in the feed sack.
It took Scoville just 10 minutes to fill up one bag. He says he's gone through dozens of these 50 pound feed sacks since he started cleaning up two months ago, and he averages filling about three to five of them in just one cleanup.
Scoville found a whole grocery bag of litter on his cleanup Thursday.
“They went to the trouble to bag it up, but then threw it out here,” he said.
He also picked up a piece of luggage.
“It would be nice to have some money in it, wouldn't it?” Scoville said.
He says he started this because he was tired of driving through his neighborhood and seeing trash.
“We can all look at it. We can all complain, gripe and fuss, but that's not going to get it moved or picked up. So, I said 'I'm going to get the bull by the horns,'” Scoville said.
Scoville says he knows that even though it's being picked up today, there will be more litter by tomorrow.
“It's just carelessness. It's just people who don't care, don't care about the community,” Scoville said.
He has a message for those who are adding to the problem.
“Please, stop it, somebody's gotta go pick this stuff up,” Scoville said.
Since Scoville started his clean-up mission, he says about a dozen people in town have joined him, but he says they can't do it all on their own, it needs to be a community effort.
“If you just pick up in front of your own house, in your own ditch, that helps. If everyone does a little, we can accomplish a lot,” Scoville said.
Keep Jones Beautiful and the Jones County Board of Commissioners will hold a county-wide cleanup on April 17, starting at 8 a.m. Lunch will be provided at Carol’s Park for all volunteers and team leaders.
Jones County Sheriff's Office say they commend Scoville for his dedication to keep county roads clean.
Chief Deputy Earl Humphries says throughout the pandemic, they have not sent inmate crews to clean up litter, as a way to limit the spread of COVID-19. But within the last two weeks, they've restarted the cleanups in small groups.