Tag: Tennessee

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The Mackler Moment: A Parable

Marquita Bradshaw (Photo: Darnell Landers)

Can Knoxville state Senator Gloria Johnson, she of last spring’s “Tennessee Three” and a heroine of sorts among Democrats, actually unseat the GOP’s Marsha Blackburn in the 2024 U.S. Senate race?

There is an illustrative case — that of James Mackler, a Nashville lawyer and former Iraq war helicopter pilot, who made bold to put himself forth as a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2018 for the seat then held by the retiring moderate Republican Bob Corker.

Meanwhile, out of the Republican MAGA ranks, seeking the same seat, came the aforementioned arch-conservative Marsha Blackburn, then a congresswoman. The then still existent state Democratic establishment, two years into the Trump age, didn’t trust a novice Democrat like Mackler, no matter how promising, to take on Blackburn, so talked Tennessee’s recent Governor Phil Bredesen, an old-fashioned conservative Democrat, out of retirement to become their candidate.

Mackler dutifully withdrew, biding his time.

History records that both Bredesen and Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, the last two name Democrats to carry the party banner into battle, were both routed in 2018, Bredesen by Blackburn (who would end up a cover girl on The New York Times Magazine) and Dean by Bill Lee.

Mackler was still on the scene and considered it his time to take on the next Senate race in 2020, where he would be opposed by the GOP’s Bill Hagerty, a former ambassador and state economic development commissioner. What was left of the Democratic establishment, in something of its last go-round, thought Mackler was right and timely, also, and got behind him.

Alas! Mackler and the party establishment withheld their considerable fundraising receipts from a five-way Democratic primary, hoarding them for the forthcoming race against Hagerty, and never even got to the general election. Mackler was upset in the primary by one Marquita Bradshaw, an environmentalist from Memphis who had no ballyhoo whatsoever and had raised virtually no money.

What she did have was an emergent standing among Memphis Blacks as a progressive candidate (though a nonmember of the now-expiring party establishment).

What she had was enough to win 35.5 percent of the primary vote, outpolling poor Mackler, who had 23.8 percent. Between the primary and the general, Bradshaw upped her campaign kitty from $22,300 to $1.3 million (a major-party nomination is still worth something), but lost to Hagerty, once again polling 35 percent.

Jump to last week, when the Beacon Center, a conservative think tank, released the results of two Emerson College polls — one measuring incumbent Blackburn running for reelection against Gloria Johnson, another matching her against Bradshaw, regarding the Memphian, once again as a prospective Senate candidate.

Beacon had Blackburn running ahead of Johnson by 49 percent to 29 percent, with the balance undecided. Against Bradshaw, Blackburn’s margin was smaller, 48 percent to 36 percent.

What Beacon did not do was match the two Democrats against each other, testing what might happen in a primary encounter.

But, given the example of Mackler, the already actively campaigning Johnson might wonder, as do we. Might she suffer an unexpected defeat to Bradshaw, a la Mackler?

Word from the Democratic establishment (yes, it still exists, though barely) is that Johnson has digested the lesson of Mackler and will pour a generous amount of the substantial funds she has already raised for a primary contest.

That will take pace in August, and we shall see what we shall see.

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Race and Ethnicity Biases Account For Majority of Hate Crimes In Tennessee

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

New data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shows that the majority of the hate crimes in Tennessee from 2022 were on the basis of race and ethnicity. The report also found that most of these crimes targeted Black people.

The FBI said that the data comes from voluntary reporting to the organization through the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Out of 413 participating Tennessee law enforcement agencies, 399 of them submitted data. 

A hate crime is defined by the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program as “a committed criminal offense which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias(es) against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.”

“Hate crimes are often committed based on differences in personal characteristics such as appearance, language, nationality or religion,” said the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI). “The key element of any hate crime is the presence of a bias motivation. The criminal act alone does not define a hate crime; rather the investigation of the crime must conclude that the offender was bias-motivated.”

Out of the 94 reported crimes. 43 were considered “Anti-Black or African American.” The second highest category were “Anti-White” crimes, with 10 being reported.

The first year that hate crimes were reported entirely through the NIBRS was in 2021. According to data from that year, most of Tennessee’s crimes were motivated by race and ethnicity, accounting for 91 (61.9 percent) incidents.

The FBI also notes that since crime is a “sociological phenomenon influenced by a variety of factors,” and that there are differing levels of participation over time, they discourage using data as a way to measure law enforcement effectiveness.

Nationally, there were 11, 643 hate crime incidents reported in 2022. The report also notes that only 14,660 law enforcement agencies participated in crime reporting, out of more than 18,800 nation-wide. The Southern Poverty Law Center notes that this is the “fifth consecutive year of declining participation.”

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Stranger Than Fiction

In an introduction to a recently published book on political scandals in Tennessee, former Governor Bill Haslam opines: “Scandals can have a lot of results. I hope this book can be a reminder that good government matters and that good government starts with politicians who are more concerned about the people they serve than serving their own political ends.”

To be honest, one of the results of scandals is that they don’t just shock. They entertain. And that is certainly one of the reasons for reading Welcome to Capitol Hill: 50 Years of Scandal in Tennessee Politics by two veteran statehouse reporters, Joel Ebert and Erik Schelzig.

Ebert’s coverage was for The Tennessean newspaper of Nashville (he has since moved on to a post at the The University of Chicago Institute of Politics). Schelzig toiled for the Associated Press, and for the last several seasons he has been editor of the Tennessee Journal, a well-respected weekly newsletter about politics and government in the state. 

Though Nashville-based for their journalism, the two authors pay considerable attention in their volume to political personalities from our own end of the state — several of whom, as perpetrators or as observers, had much to do with the various misfirings and misdeeds reported on in the book.

An early section of the book is a list of “Cast of Characters” to be encountered in the volume. I suppose I’m more pleased than otherwise to find my own name to be listed there — basically because my journalism over the years put me in contact with many of the people and events featured in the volume.

There is, for example, the following quote derived from an erstwhile interview I did with former state Senator John Ford of Memphis, who is the central figure in the authors’ chapter entitled “John Ford and the Tennessee Waltz.”

Said the senator regarding a piece of relatively mild ethics-reform legislation that had just been passed by the legislature: “There’s conflict of interest, and there’s illegal. These crazy-assed rules and everything? Shit, I won’t be able to make a living.”

It is a matter of record that Ford, known for a fast temper and faster driving, and for having a hand, for better and for worse, in beaucoup legislation, ended up doing time for having received upwards of $10,000 from FBI agents masquerading as lobbyists working for a computer firm that ostensibly needed an enabling bill passed. He and several other legislators from Memphis were netted in a sting code-named “Tennessee Waltz” by the feds.

That chapter and several other others remind one of the old saw about truth being stranger than fiction. Indeed, the book as a whole is fast-paced and novelistic.

Baby boomers will surely remember and be regaled by the authors’ account of the late Governor Ray Blanton, who was discovered to be, not so secretly, profiting from the outright sale of pardons to convicted murderers and other felons willing to pay for a “Get Out of Jail” card. Things got so ugly that other major figures in state government contrived to get Blanton’s elected successor, Lamar Alexander, installed earlier than his scheduled inauguration date.

Of more recent vintage — and adequately covered in the book — were such sagas as those of state Rep. Jeremy Durham of upscale Franklin, whose predatory womanzing resulted in his being expelled from the legislature, and of Shelby County’s own Brian Kelsey, whose illegal shuffling of campaign funds resulted in a federal indictment and conviction, and a prison sentence that the once-renowned “stunt-baby of Germantown” is still, even as we speak, trying, Trump-like, to get postponed to some future-tense time.

And there is, as they say in ad-speak, More, More, More. The book (296 pages, Vanderbilt University Press) can be snagged for $24.99 from Amazon, or $14.99 for a Kindle edition. 

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Report: Tourism Spending Rose Above $4B Here Last Year

(Credit: Memphis Tourism)

Tourism topped a record-breaking $4 billion in spending in Shelby County last year, up from 2021, and enough to rank second in spending among Tennessee’s 95 counties. 

These are the finalized figures from U.S. Travel and Tourism Economics and released recently by the Tennessee Department of Tourism Development (TDTD). The report shows spending here rose 16 percent from 2021’s spend of $3.4 billion to just over $4 billion. The new figure showed growth over 2019’s pre-pandemic activity when tourists spent more than $3.7 billion in Shelby County. 

Credit: State of Tennessee

Visitor spending in Shelby County brought more than $391.8 million to state and local tax coffers. State officials said without this tourism money, each Shelby County household would pay $1,105 more in state and local taxes. Tourism spending also supported 27,745 jobs here. 

What did visitors buy here? Food and beverage topped the list with more than $1.3 billion spent. Transportation ($956.7 million), accommodations ($669.5 million), recreation ($566.1 million), and retail ($490.6 million) rounded out the top five spending categories. 

Credit: State of Tennessee

About 141 million people visited Tennessee last year and spent around $29 billion, a figure higher than the preliminary report issued earlier this year.    

   “Tennessee is thriving as tourism is soaring,” said Mark Ezell, TDTD Commissioner. “Our industry’s hard work is paying off with record levels of visitor spending and significantly outpacing inflation.” 

Shelby County ranked second to Davidson County in spending last year. Nashville saw tourist spending rise 35 percent from 2021 to a record $9.9 billion.   

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Report: Tennessee Gun Deaths Reached Record High in 2021

Max Kleinen | Unsplash
Credit: Sycamore Institute

A new study by the nonpartisan Sycamore Institute found gun-related deaths in Tennessee rose to a record high in 2021, and they grew faster for children and Black Tennesseans. 

The Tennessee-based policy center said guns killed 1,569 people in Tennessee in 2021, according to the latest data available. Suicides counted for more than half (52 percent) of those. Of homicides, guns were the leading cause of death for those aged 1 to 18. The rate of gun-related deaths of Black Tennesseans was almost three times higher than that of whites. 

Here’s a breakdown of the rest of Sycamore Institute’s findings in their own charts: 

Credit: Sycamore Institute
Credit: Sycamore Institute
Credit: Sycamore Institute
Credit: Sycamore Institute
Credit: Sycamore Institute
Credit: Sycamore Institute
Credit: Sycamore Institute
Credit: Sycamore Institute
Credit: Sycamore Institute
Credit: Sycamore Institute
Credit: Sycamore Institute
Credit: Sycamore Institute
Credit: Sycamore Institute
Credit: Sycamore Institute
Credit: Sycamore Institute
Credit: Sycamore Institute
Credit: Sycamore Institute
Credit: Sycamore Institute

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Tennessee Officials Begin to Grapple with Artificial Intelligence as Tech Takes Hold

Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash

Tennessee lawmakers and legal officials are adding their voices to a growing chorus of leaders interested in regulating artificial intelligence (AI) as the revolutionary technology begins to take hold in the state. 

Many internet users have by now dipped a toe in AI programs. The Flyer recently asked a text-to-image AI generator to create a photo of “Memphis in the future” (results below). We’ve also asked ChatGPT, so far the most user-friendly and low-barrier AI program, to “write a news story about Memphis.” Turns out, that phrase was too vague, and the program basically spit out the city’s Wikipedia page. 

Memphis Flyer via Diffusion Bee

However, ABC24 reporters got a better response in May when they asked a specific question: What should Memphis do to improve its crime problems? The program said city leaders should focus on community policing, building better trust relationships with police officers, investing money in programs that get at the root of crime, and youth development programs like early childhood education. 

However, AI leaders from all over the world issued a dire warning about the technology last month. That warning (maybe even in its succinctness) made headlines across the globe and seemed to rattle leaders. 

“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” reads the statement housed at the website for the Center for AI Safety. 

If that doesn’t hit home, maybe you’re the kind of person to consider a dire warning from another … expert: Joe Rogan. He warned of AI’s power and influence when someone used ChatGPT to make a real-sounding but totally fake episode of his controversial podcast The Joe Rogan Experience last month. 

It seems, AI has moved from the pages of comic books and sci-fi novels, to laboratories and to early adopters, and to Main Street internet pretty quickly. And lawmakers are trying now to get a handle on it. 

Last month, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) worried that such programs could be used to create real-sounding but totally fake versions of country songs. She told Fox News that ChatGPT “pulls it right up, and then you can lay in that voice. Give me a voice that sounds like Garth Brooks. Give me a voice that sounds like Reba McEntire singing.” The idea could have major implications for Nashville’s — and the state’s — music industry.

Blackburn expressed concern this week that governments could use AI “to further their surveillance operations.” 

“I’ve watched what has happened in China and how they are using AI to grow the surveillance state,” Blackburn said. “They’re very aggressive in this, and we know that they have used it.”

In Nashville this week, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti urged the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to create governance policies for AI, especially as it “is developed or used to make decisions that result in legal or other significant effects on people.” Of special concern to the AG (and the other AGs who signed a letter this week) was the use of sensitive data like medical information, biometric data, or personal information about children in AI and the possible outputs from it, like deepfakes.

“For example, consumers must be told when they are interacting with an AI rather than a human being and whether the risks of using an AI system are negligible or considerable,” reads the letter. 

That letter says any governance shouldn’t dampen innovation in the AI space, however. This is about the same as legislators said about the internet when it became more widely available.

That innovation in AI has already started to spread across Tennessee and in Memphis. For example, the University of Memphis’ Institute for Intelligent Systems lists more than 20 AI projects underway at the school. 

One project, AutoTutor, “is a computer tutor that helps students learn by holding a conversation in natural language.” That project has won nearly $5 million in research grants from the federal government. Another project, Personal Assistant for Life Long Learning (PAL3), will guide new Navy sailors in performing their mission essential shipboard duties. The Memphis portion funding this project is $400,000. 

Further east, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the federally funded research and development lab in East Tennessee, launched the Artificial Intelligence Initiative to help its scientists use AI to accelerate their discoveries. Further east in Knoxville, the University of Tennessee launched the $1-million AI Tennessee Initiative in March to fund researchers to use AI in “smart manufacturing, climate-smart agriculture and forestry, precision health and environment, future mobility, and AI for science.”

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Report: Memphis Hate Groups Reduced by Half in Past Two Years

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

The number of hate groups operating in the Memphis area was cut in half over the last two years, according to a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

Each year, the Montgomery, Alabama-based SPLC issues its  Year In Hate and Extremism report, which details hate groups and anti-government extremist groups operating across the U.S. This year’s report found a total of 1,225 active groups (in both categories combined) in the U.S., up slightly from the 1,221 groups active in 2021.

The number of hate groups fell for the fourth year in a row in 2022. A record number of such groups (1,020) was recorded in 2018. This fell to 733 in 2021 and to 523 in the 2022 report. However, the number of anti-government groups rose. The number of such groups totaled 566 in 2020, fell to 488 in 2021, but rose steeply to 702 in the 2022 report. 

”This report clearly shows the impact of these groups and hard-right figures in the mainstream and on Main Street, demonstrating the growing harm and threat they pose to individuals, communities and democracy itself,” reads the report. 

The SPLC researchers noted that hate groups, “extremist activists,” and the Republican Party had become “increasingly intertwined since Donald Trump’s presidency began.” 

“Republican politicians now mingle freely with members of the organized white nationalist movement and employ their rhetoric more freely than at any other time in recent American history,” reads the report, citing Trump’s dinner with anti-semitic rapper Ye and a GOP gala in New York that included a Pizzagate theorist and many white nationalists.

The Southern Poverty Law Center tracked 33 groups in Tennessee. I Credit: Southern Poverty Law Center.

In Memphis, four groups made the SPLC’s annual report. That’s down from the eight groups reported in 2020.

Gone from the report this year four are Black nationalist groups — Great Millstone, Israel United in Christ, Nation of Islam, and the New Black Panther Party for Islam. The SPLC said “Black nationalists typically oppose integration and racial intermarriage, and they want separate institutions — or even a separate nation — for blacks.” The groups are also ”anti-white and antisemitic,” the group said. No reason was given as to why these groups were not listed in this year’s report.

Also gone from this year’s report is Confederate 901, a seemingly inactive group that surfaced in 2017. Its leaders were opposed to the removal of Confederate statues in Memphis, especially the former Nathan Bedford Forrest statue in what is now Health Sciences Park. The group organized a protest rally in 2018 that brought a rolling convoy of supporters to the roads around Memphis.  

However, the group’s last tweet was issued in 2018.

Two new groups have been added to the SPLC’s report on Memphis over the last two years. The Proud Boys and the Shelby County chapter of Moms for Liberty are now active here. 

The local Moms for Liberty group says it is “dedicated to the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.” Jennifer Martin is listed as the county chapter chair on the national group’s website. 

Credit: Moms for Liberty Shelby County via Facebook

The local Proud Boys group also made the list. The group’s profile rose last year as they counter-protested a pro-choice rally here. 

The West Tennessee Proud Boys website shows a photo of the group marching on Beale Street and tells its members to “walk your streets with your head held high.” An obviously fake Memphis address is listed as “Freedom Street, Memphis, TN 38503.” The ZIP Code is for Cookeville, Tennessee.  

In its website’s “Beliefs” section, the local Proud Boys say they are “are proud Western Chauvinists who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.” They say they want small government, freedom of speech, closed borders, the right to bear arms, to “venerate the housewife,” and more. 

On racism, the Proud Boys site says it ”may be alive, but it is not well” as “progress has been made in overcoming racial prejudice.” With that, they don’t want “anti-racial guilt.” … “Let no man be burdened with shame for the deeds of his ancestors,” reads the site. “Let no people be held accountable for things they never did.”

The site also offers a portal to join the group. Another button, for complaints, takes a visitor to a YouTube video featuring a tune called “The You Are A Cunt Song.”

Two Bartlett radio stations also made the SPLC’s list this year, as they have for years. Blood River Radio believes “genocide is being pursued against white gentile people of the world.” The Political Cesspool hosts have said “we represent a philosophy that is pro-white and are against political centralization.” 

Read more about those stations in a previous story here. Read an in-depth look at them, their hosts, and their guests from the SPLC blog here. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation issued its annual report on hate crimes in the state earlier this year. Read our story on it here. 

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Key Tennessee Education Official Resigns Amid Leadership Transition

Deputy Commissioner Eve Carney has been a fixture at the Tennessee Department of Education since 2008. Marta W. Aldrich / Chalkbeat

The leadership transition at the Tennessee Department of Education accelerated this week with the resignations of two high-level officials, including a veteran manager responsible for many of the state’s biggest education programs and initiatives.

Deputy Commissioner Eve Carney will step down on June 30th, a department spokesperson confirmed Monday.

The departure of Meghan McLeroy, the department’s chief officer responsible for supporting schools and districts statewide, is effective August 1st, the spokesperson said.

A staff member with the department since 2008, Carney currently oversees state-level work involving federal programs, school choice, testing, accountability, school improvement, and the state-run Achievement School District for low-performing schools. She is among the deepest wells of institutional knowledge within the department.

Her resignation comes at a critical time as Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds prepares to take the helm of the department on July 1 after Penny Schwinn ended her four-year tenure as commissioner last week.

Carney — who is one of four remaining members from Schwinn’s original cabinet — was expected to play a key role in helping Reynolds as the new commissioner from Texas faces myriad challenges.

Tennessee is shifting to a new education funding formula on July 1st, enforcing a controversial new third-grade retention policy for struggling readers, operating large-scale tutoring and summer learning programs to help students catch up from the pandemic, expanding its private school voucher program to a third major city, and fortifying its school buildings after a Nashville school shooting left three students and three staff members dead on March 27th. 

The state also is scheduled to start giving A-to-F grades to its 1,700-plus public schools this fall after delaying the new accountability policy for five years because of testing and data disruptions, most recently caused by the pandemic.

A former Tennessee high school teacher and former chief of districts and schools for the department, Carney became Schwinn’s go-to manager to oversee high-level, high-profile programs.

She often stepped in to provide oversight amid employee turnover in Schwinn’s first months on the job. And last summer, when the Tennessee Supreme Court lifted a two-year-old order to let the state resume work on its new private school voucher program, Schwinn turned to Carney to launch the rollout in a matter of weeks.

Carney was viewed as a possible successor to Schwinn, especially after Chiefs for Change, a national network of education leaders, named her in January to its latest cohort of “future chiefs,” considered a springboard for administrators seeking top jobs.

But in May, when Schwinn announced plans to step down at the end of the school year, Gov. Bill Lee went out of state to find his new education chief. Reynolds has political and policy experience in Texas and Washington, D.C., and most recently oversaw policy for the advocacy group ExcelinEd, founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Lee also named Sam Pearcy, the department’s deputy commissioner of operations, to serve as interim education commissioner until Reynolds’ arrival. Pearcy was sworn in on June 2nd, after Schwinn’s last day on June 1, said department spokesperson Brian Blackley.

An alum of Teach for America, Pearcy joined the department in 2011 as part of the team overseeing school reform work under Tennessee’s $500 million award for the federal Race to the Top program.

McLeroy, another early member of Schwinn’s cabinet, has been with the department since 2011. She also initially helped to lead the state’s Race to the Top work.

The department plans to reassign Carney’s and McLeroy’s responsibilities to existing staff by the end of June, Blackley said.

Earlier this spring, Lisa Coons, the state’s chief academic officer, left Tennessee to become superintendent of public instruction for Virginia’s education department.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

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Tennessee Tourism Sees Record-Breaking 2022

(Credit: Memphis Tourism)

Tennessee travel spending hit a record-breaking $27.5 billion in 2022, state leaders announced recently. 

The feat is according to preliminary data released by U.S. Travel and Tourism Economics. The new data put Tennessee in the top 25 states for travel spending. Tennessee also rose from 14th place in 2020 to 11th in the ranking for 2021 and 2022. 

U.S. Travel and Tourism Economics

“Tennessee’s tourism, leisure, and hospitality industry is leading the nation, and we are grateful to our hardworking industry for making these historic new milestones possible,” said Tennessee Department of Tourist Development Commissioner Mark Ezell. “Visitors come for our incredible scenic beauty, dining, and world-class attractions, and keep coming back for our unmatched hospitality. There’s nowhere better to live, work, and play than Tennessee.”

The leisure and hospitality industry employs more than 352,000 Tennesseans. Tourism is the state’s second-largest industry and contributed $1.8 billion to the state coffers last year. 

Countywide data on tourism is due from the company in August. However, the firm’s latest data for the Memphis area said visitors spent $2.6 billion here in 2019. 

A Memphis Tourism and Greater Memphis Chamber report released in August 2022 said tourism jobs in Memphis had returned to pre-pandemic levels and that the industry had made a “full recovery.” That report said tourists spent $3.4 billion here in 2021. 

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Report: Litter Decreased Along Tennessee Roads

Credit: John Cameron on Unsplash

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. 

Credit: Tennessee Department of Transportation

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. 

Credit: Tennessee Department of Transportation

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. 

Credit: Tennessee Department of Transportation

While not discussed in detail, another chart in the study shows that West Tennessee had the least amounts of litter along its roads. 

Credit: Tennessee Department of Transportation

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. 

Credit: Tennessee Department of Transportation

”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. 

Credit: Tennessee Department of Transportation

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.