Litter on Tennessee roadways decreased since 2016 and while Memphis appears to be most littered city here, West Tennessee was the least.
All of this is according to a new litter report from Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) and Keep Tennessee Beautiful (KTNB). That report, called the 2022 Tennessee Statewide Litter Study, found that litter along interstates, U.S. highways, state highways, and local roads decreased by about 12 percent over the last six years.
However, the figure is still staggering. The report said that 88.5 million pieces of litter (larger than four inches) exist on Tennessee roadsides at any give time, down from 100 million in 2016. And these are only pieces of littler that are four inches or longer, visible to passersby. The report found about 679.7 million pieces of litter that were four inches or smaller and may not be visible on roads.
For the study, a team identified 120 locations across the state, split evenly between each Grand Division, road types, and rural and urban areas. Two-person teams armed with computer tablets visited the sites and counted the litter there.
In Memphis, teams visited spots along I-40, I-55, Elvis Presley Blvd., New Tchulahoma Road, Thomas, Lamar, 385, and Riverdale. The study does not specifically call out Memphis as the most littered. However, a heat map of litter in it certainly seems to prove the fact.
While not discussed in detail, another chart in the study shows that West Tennessee had the least amounts of litter along its roads.
Plastic products remained the most-littered items along Tennessee’s roads. The report found nearly 285 million plastic items, comprising more than 37 percent of the state’s total litter in 2022. That’s up slightly from more than 35.6 percent in 2020. The biggest offenders were plastic bottles: water bottles, juice/tea/sports drinks bottles, and soda bottles in that order.
”Plastic product types, recycling processes, and secondary market changes have significantly impacted how plastic materials are handled, both in Tennessee and nationally, since 2016,” reads the report, albeit vaguely. “This may contribute to plastics composing more than one third of the total materials on Tennessee roadways.”
Paper products followed plastic. Researchers found more than 165 million pieces of paper litter in the study. Paper comprised 21.5 percent of all littler found in the study, up from 18 percent found in 2020. The biggest offender in the group was the generic “other paper” category, which was 16 percent of the paper litter. While it’s not known what products are there, what’s not there are fast food items, napkins, paper bags, junk mail, newspapers, receipts, and other products that had their own categories. One uptick, though, was in cardboard products for what the study called “the Amazon Effect.”
Cigarette-butt litter was cut nearly in half between 2020 and 2022, according to the report. While butts were nearly a quarter of all littler in 2020 (24 percent), they comprised only about 13 percent of litters last year.
This may be explained, in part, to the changes in tobacco usage over time (e.g.,increase usage of vape pens) and less need to dispose of cigarette butts on the larger roadways,” reads the report.
Butt litter saw massive decreases along interstates and U.S. highways but remained steady on state highways and local roads. Also, researchers still found plenty of cigarette and cigar butts out there, nearly 98 million of them.
