February 26, 2007
Cairo-- Sheriff Harry Young takes pride in serving Grady County. To him, it's a special place. "We've got a beautiful county, we got rolling hills, probably one of the prettier counties in south Georgia as far as beauty, as far as landscape," says Young.
But he says trash on the roads has always been a problem here, and its getting worse. "I've noticed trash on every road we got in the county, all are major highways as you come into Grady county, it looks aweful."
In the past in Grady county, if you got caught littering, you'd get a ticket and probably have to pay a fine. But sheriff Young says that paying a fine just doesn't seem to make a big enough impression to stop people from littering.
Young decided he was going to have to do something drastic to get the litter bugs' attention. When caught, "they're gonna be arrested, charged $675, go out on $1000 bond, if they can't make bond in 48 hours, we're gonna take an arrest warrant out on them," Young said.
They'll have to go to court, and could end up facing time behind bars. "These people can be sentenced anywhere from one day to one year. Something's got to be done and we got to take a stand on it," said Young.
Young encourages people who witness littering, to call 911 and report it immediately, and they'll follow up on it.
With everyone working together to solve the problem, Young hopes Grady county can literally clean up the streets.
Grady county has two recycling centers where you can drop off your trash, on first avenue and Beckbranch road. They collect newspapers, plastic, aluminum and tin cans, cardboard, and magazines.
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