Now that winter is winding down, the snowmelt is revealing an ugly remnant of the season.
Many of our state highways are littered with garbage.
PennDOT says crews haven’t been able to do proper cleanups in weeks.
It’s a late-winter affliction along state highways like Route 33 in Northampton County: Mile after mile of messy muck.
The snow is gone and the trash is back.
“First of all, I wonder how it got there in the first place,” said Eugene Search of Easton.
“And it’s a ton of garbage. They no sooner pick it up and there’s just more garbage. I don’t know where it comes from,” said Mark Sokolowski of Palmer Township.
On a muddy gray day, roadside trash can make it seem just a little bit uglier.
But PennDOT says that cleanup is on the way.
“Typically in the spring we will get a lot of complaints regarding the litter,” said Sean Brown, a PennDOT spokesman.
In 2024, PennDOT spent more than 18 million dollars on trash removal.
PennDOT picked up four million pounds in 2025.
“(I’d like to see) a little more enforcement,” Sokolowski said.
“Quite frankly, I’d like to see people who throw trash out of their cars ticketed,” Search said.
Fines for littering on a Pennsylvania highway can range from 50 dollars for a first offense, to up to $1,000 for repeat offenders.
PennDOT says it will resume trash collection in the coming days.
“PA cleanup, adopt a highway, those things do get started,” Brown said.