CHARLESTON, S.C. — South Carolina’s roads are getting trashier because of COVID-19.
Officials say the pandemic is keeping inmate crews and volunteers from gathering to clean up highways.
The state Department of Transportation says the problem is compounded by more people are going to drive-thrus for food and then tossing disposable containers out of their vehicles.
The department had to hire contractors to pick up roadside litter for the first time, paying them $668,000 to collect 544,000 pounds of trash in 2020.
Inmates stopped picking up trash in March because of the pandemic. In 2019, about 220 prisoners cleaned more than 15,000 miles of state roads, most of them interstates.