Prince George’s County will spend nearly $800,000 on an anti-littering initiative that includes hiring more employees for the cleanup effort, county officials announced Thursday.

Nearly all of that money, $720,000, will go to hire 30 workers to pickup trash and to rent litter removal equipment. There also is about $75,000 budgeted for an advertising campaign that will feature radio spots, posters in county buildings, schools, bus stops and buses and specially designed litter bags.

“If you see trash it seems like a neglected community and people don’t care,” said Jim Keary, a spokesman for County Executive Jack Johnson. “It's an eyesore and a signal to criminals that people don't care.”

The initiative will also feature a two-week blitz in Prince George’s elementary schools Oct. 1-12. Those two weeks, students will be given litter bags with messages about the campaign and will hear public address announcements about the initiative. County officials hope they take the bags and he anti-littering messages home with them.

This story continues below
Advertisement

“They will tell their parents not to litter … tell their friends not to put litter in the street,” Johnson said Thursday at a news conference at Suitland Elementary School.

Said Keary: “Our children are some of our greatest teachers.”

The county already has hired 12 of the 30 workers, according to Susan Hubbard, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Works and Transportation. “When we look at the numbers of people we had, it just wasn’t adequate,” Johnson said.

Hubbard said the county and state spent about $4.5 million in total on litter removal in Prince George’s last year with about 50 people involved in roadside collection.

Hubbard also said Johnson revitalized the county’s Environmental Crimes Unit last year, which has resulted in the arrests of about 40 people for illegal dumping.

dfowler@dcexaminer.com