FAIRFAX, Vt. (WCAX) – A beautiful view of Vermont’s natural scenery – mountains and winding rivers – and on the bank next to it – piles and piles of trash.
That’s what Fairfax resident Matt Richards found nearly two years ago in the scenic areas of his town and Georgia.
Since then, he’s constantly found himself picking up the trash, cleaning the area, then going back to the same spot a few days later and finding even more.
“Going through someone’s trash every single day, you get to know a lot about someone, and it’s a lot of things you don’t want to know,” Richards said.
The recurring items found, made him believe it’s mainly a one man job.
Then the search became a community effort as they tried to catch their suspect.
“Some people on Front Porch Forum noticed me out here picking up the trash, and they started sending me mail, so I responded and we got a group together of people who would help pick up trash,” Richards said.
Despite signs warning off littering and community efforts to clean common dumping grounds, the Vermont Agency of Transportation says they’ve seen an increase in littering each year.
The Agency of Transportation says in the 2019 fiscal year, it picked up 390 tons of trash, 436 tons in 2021 and 501 in 2022.
Richards has enlisted the help of Sergeant Kamerling with the Vermont State Police- who recommended the help of the Agency of Natural Resources.
Kamerling recently sent out a notice about the suspect in hopes of helping Richards find who’s responsible for the mess.
“It prompted me to try to get the word out and help from public to try to see who’s involved,” Kamerling said.
There’s not much law enforcement can do – as it’s a civil issue.
If a litterer does get caught – they would have to pay a fine of up to $800 and potentially need to do community service.
But for now, Richards says he’s not ending his search anytime soon.
“It’s very frustrating day after day of never getting any closer to finding him, but how does it go ‘if someone sees an injustice and they’re able to do it – they’re morally compelled to do it – they have to do it,” Kamerling said.
And so each piece he finds will get collected, inspected and properly thrown out.
