Study finds 500 millions pieces of litter on Pa. roadways

PHILADELPHIA - A two-year study by Keep PA Beautiful, PennDOT and the DEP dispatched field crews out to 180 random roads in the city, suburbs and rural areas to clean and collect data on roadside trash. The study found 500 million pieces of litter on roadways in Pennsylvania.

"Some people have a hard time wrapping their head around 500 million pieces of litter," Executive Director of Keep PA Beautiful Shannon Reiter told FOX 29.

The study found an estimated 93 million cigarette butts on the roadways, which was the leading litter among the 83 types of trash that eventually ends up in the soil and our waterways.

With some rubber gloves and plastic bags, FOX 29's Chris O'Connell went to work for a couple of hours on cigarette butt patrol from the Blue Route in Delco to High Street in West Chester.

It just isn't about cigarette butts. 

"Car parts, tires, a million different things I’ve seen," one resident.

The bottom line is prevention starts with all of us.