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On Tuesday, the Troup County Board of Commissioners approved a contract with AAA Landscape Management for right-of-way maintenance.

County Engineer James Emery said the contract allows much more flexibility than the county’s contract with the previous commercial landscaping provider.

The contract is based on a per-mile basis at $300 per mile, which would include mowing, trimming and litter pickup.

Emery said they were able to negotiate the contractor down from $350 per mile for a significant savings to the county.

The cost of mowing and picking up litter for the county’s 498 miles of roadway to maintain will be $149,400 per cycle.

The contract will also allow the county to request litter pickup at a cost of $75 per mile, which can be done for the whole county or just hot spots as needed.

“This contractor is saying they will pick up all the roads in Troup County at $75 a mile for the whole county or they’ll pick up one mile for $75. The fact that those two prices are the same, it’s a little bit surprising, but it’s great for us to be able to have that ability to have this contractor respond at our call,” Emery said.

Emery said county employees can’t pick up trash at a cost that low.

Commissioner Morris Jones asked how they are going to ensure the litter is actually being picked up because the county constantly gets litter complaints, even in areas that have just been picked up.

Emery said that question frequently comes up because people are constantly littering, so the contractors will photograph the areas they have cleaned up.

“We’ll literally do photography after a pass so that we can see that there is no litter on the ground after they passed,” Emery said. “You go out there and look right behind him there’s litter all over the place.”

Emery said they know litter is being picked up because the companies do the pickup after mowing. The trash they find days later doesn’t have cuts.

“You can tell whether or not that litter has been hit by a bush hog or not. You can see blade marks on those plastic bottles versus if it was just discarded today,” Emery said.

The contract calls for each whole cycle of mowing, trimming and litter pickup to be completed within five days.

County Manager Eric Mosley said the option of having the roads picked up at $75 per mile will help during winter months when mowing is not needed but people continue to litter.