After spending several hours helping out with Earth Day cleanup, along with many other dedicated volunteers, I have some idea of the type, amount and distribution of trash on our country roads in Griswold. People pitch their fast-food and liquor containers several feet into the undergrowth. Light plastic iced coffee and soda cups and bags blow even farther from the roadside to tangle in forest undergrowth. On one half-mile stretch of country road, my husband and I filled 23 large trash bags and pulled tires, plumbing fixtures and other large debris from otherwise beautiful woods.

While some smaller items are close to the roadside, the majority of the trash, including empty nips bottles, are several or many feet from the pavement’s edge. Due to the location of this insidious trash, I am puzzled as to why the nips tax monies distributed to towns is not always being used as intended? Two towns in our local area, Griswold and Plainfield, are spending their nips monies on Street Sweepers.

Since Street Sweepers do not clean up trash very far from the pavement, it seems to me that this use of the nips monies does not comply with the intention of the law.

Elizabeth Dorff

Griswold