As winter begrudgingly gives way to spring in central Ohio, it unveils its dirty little secret: litter.

"Litter gets a lot of focus in the spring because the snow melts away, the greenery is not in yet on trees or grass, so litter is very visible," said Kerry Crossen, executive director of Keep Ohio Beautiful, the nonprofit affiliate of Keep America Beautiful.

During the next several weeks, cleanup events will take aim at the debris.

"They find literally everything in these cleanups: toilets, hot tubs, full appliances dumped down hillsides," Crossen said.

Keep America Beautiful has 35 state affiliates, and Ohio's is the fourth largest, Crossen said. "So I think as a community we're cognizant and know how important education is."

The Ohio group's 2007 cleanup, a three-month sweep by 62,573 volunteers, collected more than 3.6 million pounds of trash.

With the average bag of trash weighing in at 20 pounds, Crossen said, that's 180,000 bags of litter.

In Columbus, when the snow clears, the cleanup begins.

" 'Snow warriors' become 'litter warriors' for two weeks where they devote all their time to picking up litter," said Mary Carran Webster, assistant public service director. "This year they will be doing that from March 31 to April 11. Last year, they picked up 66 tons."

Keep Columbus Beautiful organized 437 litter cleanups last year. Volunteers put 344,559 pounds of litter into 11,485 trash bags, Webster said.

The city's annual spring cleanup, featuring Mayor Michael B. Coleman, several department directors and up to 150 city employees, will descend on the Weinland Park area Saturday.

The maximum penalty for littering in Columbus is $500 and 60 days in jail.

Grove City also wages war against litter.

Linda Rosine is the city's environmental specialist and coordinates Keep Grove City Beautiful.

"Litter gets thrown out of cars, blown off trucks," Rosine said. "We just cleaned up Stringtown Road the other day. The majority of things we see are fast-food wrappers with cups and straws, then plastic bottles like pop and water bottles."

She thinks the problem could be decreased if more fast-food restaurants offered trash cans to drive-through customers.

A recent survey showed most don't have them, she said.

"We'll follow up to have more put out," Rosine said.

"We probably have about 40 groups that go out at the end of March, the first part of April when it gets warm," she said. "Last year in January, February and March, just in cleanups in the city, we picked up about 1,300 pounds of trash."

Littering carries a maximum fine of $500 in Grove City, Rosine said.

Whitehall officials have made fighting litter a priority for a couple years, said Ray Ogden, public service director. They started a litter task force, ran education campaigns and conducted cleanup efforts.

"We thought littering was becoming a problem and thought the code needed stiffening," he said.

The penalty was increased from a $150 fine to $500, Ogden said.

Hilliard Service Director Butch Seidle said city workers there monitor the roadsides "almost daily." The city also works with residents and community leaders on Earth Day and Spring Cleanup Day to pick up litter.

First-time litter offenders pay $250, and a second offense is $500.

So are we losing the war against litter?

Crossen said 2006-07 research showed a slight drop in the amount of litter collected in Ohio, but she wouldn't call it a trend.

Still, she said, "I think the entire 'Go green' movement has people thinking about it."

Earth Day is April 22, Crossen said, and other events will be posted by Wednesday on www.keepohio

beautiful.us.

mrozenman@dispatch.com

Litter basics

Litter has seven key sources:

• Pedestrians

• Motorists

• Loading-dock areas

• Uncovered loads

• Construction and demolition sites

• Household trash that scatters from cans with no lids

• Dumpsters at businesses

People litter for three main reasons:

• They have no sense of ownership for the property.

• Someone else will clean up after them.

• There's already litter.

Sources: Keep America Beautiful, Keep Ohio Beautiful

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