Jan 8, 2014 1 min read

Canton Township supervisors are understandably upset about trash being dumped alongside roads. A photo in Wednesday’s newspaper showed a huge pile of building materials lying not just beside Edgewood Drive but right on it.

Supervisor Robert Franks said, “We are not going to tolerate it. State police and our road crews have been notified. … The penalty for illegal dumping is a $1,000 fine and/or 90 days in jail.”

Such a penalty, were it ever to be imposed, would certainly be a deterrent. The problem is in catching the culprits, who often dump trash along lonely stretches of road in the middle of the night. Catching them will require more than the police; the public must help them by vigilantly reporting violations and suspicious activity.

What’s more, trash tends to be dumped where other trash has been dumped. Maybe the idiots who do the dumping think these befouled places are safer. At any rate, township and PennDOT crews can’t be expected to clean up all the mess. Citizens must take the initiative to keep their own neighborhoods clean and dump-free.

This isn’t just Canton’s problem. Take a look around; the problem is everywhere.