We have received calls, emails, letters to the editor and Facebook messages about trash on the roadways over the last month. People are upset about the county’s perceived litter problem and over the last week we’ve written two stories on that topic. The debate over litter became a popular discussion after the Troup County Correctional Facility closed last year. It left dozens of inmates under the Sheriff James Woodruff left to pick up the slack that previously hundreds of workers were doing to pick up trash and cut grass.

It didn’t take a degree from an Ivy League school to realize that there’d be some work left undone.

Instead of 14 trash details picking up trash every day, now there’s only one. That’s what happens when there are 300 less workers at the county’s disposal.

Those that are under the sheriff’s office have delivered real results though. In January 2018, inmate workers worked along 24 roads and picked up 725 bags of loose litter, 18 whole bags of trash, 72 tires and 21 deer.

That’s not the work of more than 350 inmates, but it is a considerable difference on our roadways.

Long-term, it’s still a game of catch up, and frankly, we wish we had a straight answer as the best way to alleviate the issue.

The truth is that both locals and businesses need to care do their part to clean up after themselves.

The next time you start to roll down your window to throw out a piece of gum or you start to walk away from a pile of trash at a park, think again. If you don’t pick it up, someone else will have to.