New York state Department of Transportation workers hit the road Wednesday for a cleanup project in Albany County.
In bright hardhats and yellow reflective vests, DOT staffers retrieved multiple bags of trash from the sides of the Delmar Bypass. As DOT Capital Region Director Mike Arthur explains, you name it, they’ve found it.
“It’s not just paper products. It's fenders and pieces of metal and just, you know, parts break loose from cars and end up on the roadside. But the majority of it is paper products and plastics and polyester,” Arthur said.
Arthur adds he doesn’t understand why people can’t just properly dispose of trash.
“It's a shame that some people feel the need to throw things out their window. We would hope that they see us out here picking litter and they decide to make a different decision in the future, a lot of this accumulates from the fall until now,” Arthur said.
It’s also National Work Zone Awareness Week. Arthur says it’s the start of construction season and warns people strike DOT vehicles every week.
“It's just people looking at their cell phone. They hit those attenuators full speed, and those attenuators protect our workers. They protect our equipment, but we lose, I don't know, 40 or 50 of those attenuators every year,” Arthur said.
Other DOT trash picking crews also hit the road in Schenectady and Saratoga Counties.
