We don’t just talk about litter, we roll up our sleeves and get down and dirty. Every two years, the Don’t Mess with Texas research team hits the state’s highways to find out what people are tossing out. Safety vests on, heavily gloved and armed with pickup sticks, we count every fast-food wrapper, cigarette butt and bottle. Then we interview thousands of Texans to find out their personal littering behaviors. And that’s how we form all of our strategies for keeping Texas roadways clean and beautiful. To beat litter, you’ve got to know it. And nobody knows it better than us.


Did you know?

• While roadside litter has dropped, half of Texans still admit to littering. Yikes.
• Approximately 827 million pieces of litter accumulate on Texas roadways each year.
• Tobacco trash is the most common form of litter found on Texas roadsides, and that’s no wonder — 23% of Texas smokers admit to tossing their butts out the window. But here’s a gross tidbit: it can take a cigarette butt up to 20 years to decompose because of the plastic in the filter.
• More than one-fourth (29%) of all litter items are food-related — from fast food items to candy wrappers.
• Litter can harm animals. They can get caught in plastic six-pack rings or choke on virtually anything, especially gum or cigarette butts.
• You can be fined up to $500 for littering in Texas.
• 40% of Texans believe prisoners are responsible for cleaning up the highways. (They’re not. We are.)
• If every litterer in Texas picked up just six pieces of trash every month, our highways would be completely litter-free.

Visit our Research Section to get the whole story.