Last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing the soon-to-be mayor of the City of Franklin, Frank Rabil. He shared his goals and ambitions for the city, as many of you may have read in the article that appeared in The Tidewater News this past weekend. One of his ambitions is to see residents taking self-pride in “the beautiful city.”

He noted that Franklin doesn’t give off the image he wants it to, as there is trash all over the roads which ends up in the ditches and flows to the river.

I had never really paid attention to the trash until Mr. Rabil mentioned it, and now it is clear the trash is everywhere.

I noticed it, especially on my way to work Thursday morning. There were bottles, cans, fast food bags, boxes, grocery bags, food wrappers, old toys, old clothes, cups, broken items, more boxes and so much more in the ditches, scattered throughout different yards, and on the sides of the roads.

I’m not sure if this is how the roads always look, or if even more trash has appeared now that we have actually gotten some nice weather and people are spending more time outside. Regardless, I assume some of this is from littering and the rest has fallen out of vehicles on accident.

When things are being moved from one place to another, chances are something might fly out of the vehicle, especially if it is small or light weight. Not everything is always going to be as tied down as we hope it is, and it’s nearly impossible to stop in the middle of the road and pick it up in most cases.

However, when that trash does end up out of our hands or vehicles, it gets moved or blown to the side of the road, the ditch or in someone’s yard — like where it was on my Thursday morning drive.

If you are safely able to do so, do yourself and the place you call home a favor and pick it up. If we can get it off the roads and out of the ditches, we can lessen the amount that flows into the river.

Mr. Rabil was right when he said it gives off a bad image of the city. It makes it seem like the residents of Franklin don’t care, and I know that is just not the case for many.

I know several of you participated in Earth Day and Clean Rivers Month, which both took place in April. But instead of just concentrating on cleaning up during one month, let’s make it a priority to clean up all year long.

“Cleaning up” and keeping it that way is the first step in taking self-pride in the City of Franklin.

REBECCA CHAPPELL is a staff writer at The Tidewater News. She can be contacted at 562-3187 or rebecca.chappell@tidewaternews.com