Members of the Pearl River County Board of Supervisors have said they will do their part to combat the rampant litter problem.  But this time they have a new tactic.

After Monday’s meeting, the Board gathered to show off new trash grabbers the members plan to use in their own communities to pick up litter.

While the Supervisors may have been joking when they said they’re finally doing something useful, this move shows that they are serious about ending litter.

Board President Sandy Kane Smith said he sees a couple private citizens walking the streets filling a bag full of litter everyday.

It’s people like that who take the extra effort to make their community cleaner to help everyone in the long run.

While the Board is still looking for ways to enhance penalties and ways of catching those who litter, the trash still needs to be picked up to prevent it from entering drainage systems and eventually clogging or polluting our waterways.

Monday’s meeting generated a lot of ideas that, if followed through, could help curb this prominent problem. 

Instating an anti-litter campaign in schools could encourage young people to dissuade their parents from tossing a soda can out the window of the car, and therefore dissuade them from doing it themselves.

This also shows great leadership on the part of the Board. If these community leaders hope to set an example, they have to make their efforts visible and far reaching.

The idea of organizing a countywide cleanup day where Board members suit up in bright orange vests and uses their new grabbers to pick up litter from the highway could be the shock people need.

The idea of gathering all of the trash onto a large tarp and putting it on display may also be shocking. As Board Vice President Hudson Holliday said, numbers don’t always have an effect, but visuals can.

We hope that the Board goes through with its plan to take up the fight against litterbugs.