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Taking litter out of the
S.C. lottery
Anyone who's been around a
sales location for S.C. lottery tickets knows the
score. Lots of losing tickets get tossed -- many
not in any trash can.
Now comes a very sound idea
for putting an end to the trash. It's kind of like
the returnable bottle theory or getting paid for
aluminum cans.
It makes sense: Give value
to something called trash today and it's not trash
tomorrow.
Aluminum cans aren't found
along the roadside in any number comparable to
glass bottles. Scrap dealers pay for the aluminum
by the pound. Bottles have no such recycling
value, even though glass is highly recyclable.
Returning to deposits on bottles would go a long
way toward getting them off the roadside,
too.
To give lottery tickets a
winning value, the South Carolina Education
Lottery and PalmettoPride kicked off CleanSweep, a
yearlong initiative.
Entrants can submit five
losing tickets for a chance to win the CleanSweep
second-chance drawing. The lottery will draw 100
entries each month and award each winning entrant
$50. The drawings will be held on the last
Wednesday of each month until June 30,
2004.
Now even a losing ticket
isn't trash.
Fortunately, there are a
lot of South Carolinians who also find value in
simply improving the state by getting rid of
litter. These are people who made the 2003 South
Carolina Great American Cleanup a
success.
Organizers report that the
number of volunteers and the tons of litter
collected in 2003 surpassed previous years. The
cleanup gathered citizens statewide to eradicate
litter and promote pride within their
communities.
PalmettoPride and Keep
South Carolina Beautiful challenged communities
around the state to participate in the South
Carolina Great American Cleanup. Hundreds of
groups participated.
First place in the
Community Challenge was awarded to Sammy Orr of
Jasper County for organizing a very successful
countywide cleanup. Anderson County's "Eastside
Pride Day" and the Johns Island Council and their
team of Citadel cadets were both awarded second
place in the challenge for their outstanding
cleanup and beautification efforts.
In Orangeburg County, the
cleanup efforts were divided into three separate
efforts, all notable. The Friends of the Edisto's
annual river cleanup was complemented by the
Orangeburg County Chamber of Commerce's annual
cleanup ahead of the S.C. Festival of Roses. The
pickup totals from those events, along with the
annual mountain of litter picked up by Department
of Transportation crews during Spring Clean Week,
really should be added to Great American Cleanup
totals, which are:
-- 2,198, 435 pounds of
trash collected.
-- 1,104,642 bags of trash
collected.
-- 20,890
volunteers.
-- 190 tons of material
collected from illegal dumping sites.
-- 413 cleanup
events.
There was no tally of how
many lottery tickets, though. Thanks, South
Carolina.
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