Study: More than 500M pieces of litter strewn along Pennsylvania roads

An estimated 500 million pieces of litter were strewn along Pennsylvania roads in 2018-2019, with cigarette butts and plastic food packaging, bottles and bags ranking among the most commonly picked-up items, according to the Pennsylvania Litter Research Study.

Motorists and pedestrians are leading litterers, followed by improperly secured truck loads, according to preliminary results from the study released Thursday. A full report is expected to be released early next year.

“Pennsylvania has a littering problem,” state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Patrick McDonnell said in a statement.

DEP, PennDOT and Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful are working on an initiative to reduce littering and recently presented results of the first statewide litter study in over 20 years at the recent Litter Summit in Harrisburg. The summit was attended by more than 125 government, business and community leaders.