MONROE, La. – The next time you take a drive around Monroe, you may see these all over the side of the road. They are in fact filled with trash, and it’s one of the ways the city is trying to beautify the area, one blue bag at a time.
“Our main focus is to get the city clean” says Donald Scott, Sanitation Supervisor at Monroe Public Works
The city is quickly becoming more clean each week, as 75 to 100 bags of trash are now being removed from the streets each day
The Sanitation Division at Monroe Public Works removes everything from normal trash, to even large items like tires. It’s something that hasn’t been done in a while.
“It was actually something that they had, they been having going on, but for some reason I don’t know, they had to do away with it. And so, beautification took control of it, but it really just started full fledged back in October” Scott said.
They prioritize high traffic areas like I-20 and highway 165 to Desiard and Washington streets
they also focus on numbered streets on the southside, as well as Jackson to Grand streets. They also take care of areas around St. Francis and the Booker T community. Some locations see litter removal on a daily basis. They’re hoping the effort spent on removing the litter goes past keeping the city clean.
“Hopefully, it inspires the residents to help us help them to keep it under control” Scott said.
So far, the city has collected about 3500 bags of trash. They really don’t have a set goal on the number of bags per year, but they’re going to continue to do as much as they can to keep Monroe beautiful.
