Litter Facts from Don’t Mess With Texas

Stormwater and Litter

Princeton Fall Sweep Starts November 1st!

Learning at the Library – Litter

Know When to Water and When to Wait

Grass Clippings and Leaf Litter are Stormwater Pollutants and Safety Hazards

Litter Facts from Don’t Mess With Texas

Stormwater and Litter

Recent Posts

Princeton Fall Sweep Starts November 1st!

Learning at the Library – Litter

Know When to Water and When to Wait

Grass Clippings and Leaf Litter are Stormwater Pollutants and Safety Hazards

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The Most Commonly Littered Items:

Major Sources of Litter:

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Environmental Education Events Calendar

The Most Commonly Littered Items:

Major Sources of Litter:

Gonna trash it?

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Litter

Litter is any trash that is on the ground. Litter can be found on the grass, on the street, on the highway, in trees, along a fence line, in neighborhoods, blowing in the air, and in our waterways. Litter can be intentional (on purpose) or accidental.

Do your part to make sure you don’t litter, and if you find litter, pick it up and put it in a trash can or recycling bin. Want to do more for the community? Register to Adopt-A-Spot or a Community Cleanup

Littering is against the law in Texas.

Cigarette butts
Plastic Bags
Packaging

Pedestrians
Motorists
Truck beds
Residential trash and recycling carts
Commercial trash and recycling dumpsters
Loading docks
Construction and demolition sites

Life Expectancy of Litter

Littered Item	Number of Years to Decompose
Cigarette Butts	5 – 30 years
Styrofoam, Glass, and Car Tires	Over 1 million years
Banana Peels, Apple Cores, other Food Items	Up to 5 weeks
Aluminum Cans	200 – 500 years
Plastic Bags	Up to 600 years

Litter Facts

LITTER FACT #1: 1 in 4 Texans admits to littering in the past year.

LITTER FACT #2: Approximately 435 million pieces of visible litter accumulate on Texas roadways each year.

LITTER FACT #3: The most common forms of litter are food/organic material, cigarette butts, and small pieces of paper—receipts, gum wrappers.

LITTER FACT #4: 71% of litter consists of microlitter that is not easily seen on roadways, such as cigarette butts, straws, and gum wrappers.

LITTER FACT #5: Tobacco trash is the most common form of litter found on Texas roadways.

LITTER FACT #6: You can be fined $500 every time you litter in Texas. And, if what you toss weighs more than 5 pounds, you may have to pay up to $2,000.

LITTER FACT #7: Tire debris is the second largest component of litter and is pervasive across all areas of Texas.

LITTER FACT #8: If every person in Texas picked up just two pieces of trash every month, our highways would be completely litter-free in just one year.

LITTER FACT #9: 62% of Texas smokers admit to tossing their cigarette butts out of the window of their cars. Please keep your butts in the vehicle at all times. Thanks.

LITTER FACT #10: Litter is trash that is not disposed of properly in a trashcan. Apple cores are litter too!

Stormwater

Stormwater runoff is generated from rain and snowmelt that flows over land and impervious surfaces such as streets, parking lots, and rooftops. Stormwater can infiltrate into the soil, discharge directly into streams, water bodies, drain inlets, or evaporate back into the atmosphere. Runoff can be hazardous to our streams, rivers, and lakes. Storm drains do not go through a sanitary sewer system, so all the pollutants that stormwater runoff picks up end up being discharged into the waterways.

This includes litter!

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Know when to water and when to wait with watermyyard.org A healthy yard needs less water than you may think. The Water My Yard program has been designed as a tool to assist you in determining an adequate amount of supplemental water that is needed to maintain a healthy lawn. It only takes a few […]

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Water IQ

Water My Yard

Texas Water Smart

/by Nakia Patton

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