If you drive down Highway K in Oneida County, chance are you'll see a problem very quickly: trash scattered all across the sides of the road.
The Oneida County Highway Department highway department believes most of it comes from people who have loose trash in their cars or truck beds which blows out the back or out open windows while they drive.
It's gotten so bad that the Oneida County Solid Waste Department is starting to track license plates of all vehicles driving the road without covering their waste.
Lisa Bauknecht, Oneida County Solid Waste Director said, "Normally it's worse in spring after winter thaw. This year we didn't have much of a winter but it's just we've grown, we have more traffic coming in here. It's a problem on all county roads but particularly here you know with so many people coming to use our facility."
"Anybody that comes up here you know whether they live up here or whether they're visitors to the area they don't want to see trash on the, you know the side of the road," she said.
"It's not good for the environment, it's not appealing to locals, you know the people that live around here live here for a reason and they like the beauty of the area and people that visit here, they don't want to come and see trash."
To try and keep the highway looking its best, the Oneida County Highway Department is hosting a County Road K clean up day May 4th at 8 a.m.
They are also urging community members to get involved in their 'Adopt a Highway' program.
Jeri Cooper, Financial Specialist with the Oneida County Highway Department said, "We have 172 miles of county road, and we have 91 sections of adopt-a-highway. Not all the sections are taken. We have probably about 40 sections that are open and quite a few of those are on Highway K which has the landfill so it does tend to get a lot of garbage on that road."
New signs will also be added stating loads of trash must be covered, and signs will be at both ends of Highway K.
