The Natural State is nice, but the Trash State is more apt. Anyone who has traveled extensively outside our borders must be struck by the contrast in roadsides. Ours are littered with drink cans and bottles, Styrofoam containers, plastic sacks, sandwich wrappings and the other flotsam of our nomadic lives.
Thirty years ago, Gov. David Pryor was so anguished by the sight on his pilgrimages around the state that he pushed the legislature to pass a tough litter law. It imposed stiffer penalties for littering and to pay for a permanent statewide cleanup it levied a tax on the disposable containers of fast-food merchants. But the anger from merchants was so palpable that, in response to alarms from lawmakers who had voted for it, he called a hasty special session of the legislature to repeal the act right before it was to take effect.
Gov. Mike Beebe last week proposed another way, and we like it. He wants to parole selected inmates of the state prisons a few weeks ahead of their scheduled releases on condition that they police the highways and streets for trash under the supervision of parole officers. They would do the cleanup statewide that a few civic groups now perform along a few designated stretches of highways. Highway and correctional officials have been meeting with the governor’s correctional adviser to work out the details.
One correctional official said the problem was so immense and people’s littering habits so ingrained that the parole project might not make much of a difference statewide. People’s habits have to be changed.
He may be right that a stern educational program is needed as well, but we remember what happened when New York City embarked on a campaign to clean graffiti off the subway cars and walls every night, persistently. After a while, the vandals gave up and the graffiti pretty much stopped.
Gov. Beebe has proved to be an uncanny problem solver. We hope for your driving pleasure that he has solved another.
