In a town hall meeting earlier this month, residents and city officials tossed around some ideas about how to curb the community’s litter problem.

One of the suggestions was taxing take-out containers — the kind that often end up as trash along the side of the road — to help pay for cleanup.

We’re not sure that’s the answer — in fact, it’s the sort of thing that could backfire on the community in the wrong ways.
But we do need to continue to explore ways to stop litter.

The chamber of commerce has had an effective education program in place for some time now — we bet you’ve heard your little one pipe up about Tillie the Turtle if you ever dared throw something out that wasn’t in a trash can.

But we need to make sure that education translates to us adults, too.

Litterbugs are not easy to stop — unless they leave a massive dump with easily identified trash or throw something out in direct view of a security camera, it’s hard to find the perpetrators.

We may not be able to stop litterbugs, but each of us can take part this week — and every week, for that matter — to clean up our community.

The “Don’t Drop it on Alabama” anti-litter campaign kicked off last Saturday and continues through this weekend. Coinciding with Earth Day, the county-wide effort gives us a chance to clean up.

If you need a garbage bag to help in the effort, you can contact the chamber of commerce or county commissioner Brandon Smith.