By Betty Gandee

As the weather gets nicer and you drive up and down the roadways with windows down, you can clearly see all the trash and clutter that people have tossed from their vehicles.

One may not think it matters much to toss a pop can or chip bag from their car, but it all starts to add up, and it leaves others to clean up the mess.

The Clay Family Resource Network teamed up with REAP and 15 volunteers to clean the roadside from the Exxon at Maysel to the Go-Mart in Clay as part of their West Virginia Make It Shine Day project. An astonishing 55 bags of trash were collected, along with metal and some tires in that small stretch of road.  The groups hope that after the community sees the difference the cleanup made, it will deter littering and kickoff a countywide cleanup.

Officials from Charleston are coming to Clay to discuss the ongoing problem with garbage, trash, and junk cars. Fines ranging from $500 to $5,000 dollars are possible, and offenders can face up to six months in jail if cited for excessive garbage.

A county cleanup will be set up at Pierson’s lumber on April 13, and is a free opportunity to get the trash off your property. Also on April 13, REAP will be collecting tires at Clay County High School. They urge everyone that has old tires laying around to bring them in and take part of this free cleanup to make Clay County beautiful.