‘Every day is Earth Day’: Councilwoman keeps fierce focus on litter

Shingles. Bedding. Trash-filled bags. Those are among the array of items littering many Orangeburg County roads and making the heart of longtime County Councilwoman Janie Cooper-Smith ache.

“It really bothers me to travel Belleville Road, or any road and see some of the things that I’ve seen. I’ve seen trucks going to the landfill that are not properly covered and have trash blowing out. That’s another thing we need to work on, too,” Cooper-Smith said.

The 77-year-old has helped lead the county’s fight against unsightly litter.

She said it will be a fight that will extend beyond Earth Day 2022, which is celebrated today under the theme “Invest In Our Planet,” and holds everyone responsible for acting boldly, innovating broadly and implementing equitable ways to combat litter.

“We cannot invest in our planet when we are destroying it. Litter is everybody’s job, and it should be a concern of everybody. We shouldn’t wait until Earth Day to clean up. Every day is Earth Day,” Cooper-Smith said.

‘That sparked everything’

Cooper-Smith has served on Orangeburg County Council since 1995. She said the platform – and the support of her fellow council members – has helped with the effort to combat the county’s litter problem, including updating the county’s litter control ordinance.

The county has benefited from an anti-litter ordinance that has stiffer penalties for litter bugs, Cooper-Smith said. It was approved by Orangeburg County Council in December 2017.

The ordinance raised the maximum penalty for littering from $500 to $1,000 and clearly defines when those penalties have to be given.

“The litter enforcement code officers go to court every Tuesday. They present their cases and during this court, so many citations are given, so many warnings are given, community service work is handed down and then also fines have to be paid,” Cooper-Smith said. “The magistrates have really been working with us diligently since the update of the county ordinance.”

As chairperson of the Orangeburg County Litter Campaign Committee, Cooper-Smith is appreciative of her fellow committee members and the work they did in meeting monthly to address the litter problem.

“We just took it upon ourselves to do what we could as far as controlling litter. Then they came up with these twice-a-year countywide cleanups. That was a big boost,” she said.

Orangeburg County Administrator Harold Young said while the group has not been meeting as much since the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, it still very much exists.

Cooper-Smith said a representative from the SI Group in Orangeburg would meet with the county’s Litter Campaign Committee, and that more business support will be needed in the future.

“I wish we could get more businesses involved. If we could just get businesses to put on their marquee a little anti-litter slogan twice a year for one month, that would have some impact. I believe it would have an impact on the people that work with that industry. It could have an impact on the passersby, too,” she said.

The councilwoman said more support from the general public is also needed.

“I just wish that we could get more people involved. The volunteers are a big plus to this county. I wish I could just do more for them to show how much we appreciate what they do. You have people giving up their time and energy to pick up behind some uncaring person who throws out what they don’t want,” Cooper-Smith said.

She continued, “It’s disturbing to the mind. It’s heartbreaking. It’s bad for our environment. People don’t realize how bad litter is. It kills our animals that live in the sea, it can cause viruses and it takes years for a plastic bag and a cigarette butt to disintegrate. I heard on the news that it takes 450 years for an N-95 face mask to disintegrate. That’s a long time for something to be around after it’s been thrown out.”

Cooper-Smith said her fight against litter is not new and extends back to her work with Annie Jamison, the late New Brookland community civic leader who died in 2011.

“I used to work a lot with Ms. Annie Jamison in the New Brookland area. We would have Cleanup Saturdays. On certain Saturdays we would clean up so many times a year. After church on Sunday, I would ride by and saw those streets. It looked as if nothing was done,” she said.

“We cleaned it up the day before, but the next day it looked as if nobody had picked up a piece of paper. That sparked everything. That was the spark,” Cooper-Smith noted.

‘We will see

Orangeburg’

Cooper-Smith said she has seen improvements “as far as the magistrates are concerned and code enforcement and litter control.”

“But as far as the people being concerned, I can’t really see that I have seen where the litter has really stopped being thrown out. You may not see as much in certain places because people are picking it up, but people are still continuing to throw it out,” Cooper-Smith said, noting that a change in the general public’s mindset will make the biggest difference.

She continued, “I think the fines that people are being given, the citations that are being written, the community service work that they are having to do, I think this could be an eye opener for many litterers. The word is going to get out. If you litter, you’re going to have to pay a fine or do community service work, or get written up.

“I think after a while, we will see less litter. It’s not going to completely go away, but we will see a cleaner Orangeburg than we do now. I’m just hoping for that day to soon come,” she said.

Cooper-Smith said the county’s schools could also play a larger part in the litter fight, “if they’d talk more about the negative effect litter has on our environment.”

“Even pastors could talk about it in church on Sunday. There’s nothing wrong with a pastor saying, ‘Let’s remember: Let’s not throw out anything that we don’t want. Let’s take it home and put it in our garbage,’” Cooper-Smith said.

She also believes industries need to talk about how to address litter prevention more within their workplaces.

“Fast food restaurants, maybe if they could write on the napkins or bags that they put the food in: Do not litter. It’s something to open people’s eyes. If you have a bag in your hand and it says, ‘Do not litter. Throw me in the trash and not on the ground,’ or something like that, it could have an effect. There’s a lot we can do, but we just need to be aware of it,” she said.

She said the county’s Litter Campaign Committee will need to meet more and forge more collaborations within the community.

“If we don’t meet but two or three times a year, I think we just need to meet and talk. If you meet and talk, you’re going to share what you have done, what you’ve seen done, or what we could do. But if we just go our separate ways and think about what needs to be done, we’re not going to go very far,” Cooper-Smith said.

“Teamwork is really the essence of good deeds. As a result of teamwork, you get to do good deeds, and a good deed is cleaning up our county,” she said.

Representatives from all sectors, including businesses, industries, churches and social groups are needed, Cooper-Smith said.

“It may start out as a small group, but I think if the word gets out of the bad effect litter has on our community, and how long some litter can stay on the ground before it disintegrates, I think it will have a better impact,” the councilwoman said.

The county is home to a Keep Orangeburg County Beautiful group, whose work Cooper-Smith also appreciates.

“They are doing a terrific job. They once took jeans that would have been taken to the landfill and gave these jeans to young people who might be able to wear them instead of just throwing them out. That was a gift for somebody,” she said.

Cooper-Smith said her litter control fight will continue as long as she has breath in her body.

“I’ll be 78 next month. As long as I’m around and whether I’m on council or not, I will have this spark in me to either write about it, or talk about it. As long as I’ve got a little breath in me, I will have this fight,” she said.