There has been a lot of fodder about the trash issue, and I don’t mean the garbage pickup. I will give my opinion on that at another time.

I am talking about litter that seems to be everywhere, and unlike some, I am not laying the blame on anyone with the city.

This is a citizen issue.

I can’t tell you how many times I have seen people just throw trash out of their car windows as if it were feed for the birds.

It just makes me irate. I shared with readers a few years back how I tailed someone who tossed their trash until they came to a halt.

I promptly got out of my car and marched up to their window. I was all ready to give them a nice little lecture on littering, but before I could even tap on their window they sped off.

It probably wasn’t the smartest of moves to ride someone’s bumper in this day and time and then jump out and try to approach them, but I was fuming.

When I told Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace about my actions, he advised that I never do that again. Obviously, he didn’t think I was trained for the job. I wasn’t, but when I see people litter it just sets me off.

I so badly want to ask them, “Why, if you don’t like fast food trash bags stinking up your vehicle, would you think I want to see your litter lying on the side of the road?”

There have been several times I have had to pick up trash that has been thrown in my yard. If only I had a way to find the culprits!

So, what can we do about these litterbugs?

Trying to get their car tags seems pointless. Even if authorities could track down the car owner, there is nothing saying they wouldn’t give the excuse they weren’t driving the car.

I really think the best way to get people from littering is to start teaching them at a young age not to do it.

Maybe this could be a project for a civic group. They could go into the schools and talk about the value of keeping their hometown free of trash.

And possibly these groups could also have a trash pick-up day where kids get service hours for tidying our town.

As I have shared before, one of the projects my Girl Scout troop undertook one Saturday was picking up trash along a county road. I would not call this a highlight of my Girl Scout days, but it did have an effect.

If I didn’t enjoy picking up someone else’s garbage, I was pretty sure they would not want to pick up mine.

Making Vicksburg a trash-free town cannot be dumped just on our city workers. Being free of debris requires all of us doing our part. And that means just don’t litter.

Terri Cowart Frazier writes features for The Vicksburg Post. She can be reached at terri.frazier@vicksburgpost.com.