By By Foster Kizer
I often wonder why Atmore does not try to become more like the communities on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay. Those communities pride themselves in clean highways, landscaped roadsides and a lack of billboards.
Atmore needs to come together and clean itself up. I spend many hours mowing the grass along the highway in front of my business along Hwy. 21, including the median and collect bag full after bag full of litter thrown out by people who have no pride in our community. I realize that Atmore does not have the tax resources that Daphne, Fairhope and other Eastern Shore communities have, but we as members of our wonderful city can and should do more to help keep our city and its environs cleaner. The city of Atmore does an admirable job of picking up litter and planting flowers based upon available budget resources.
I would like to challenge all the business in our community to help the city and the county by asking them to assist the city in picking up litter and helping to clean the street gutters that are directly in front of each business. Driving along Hwy. 21 going into Atmore, the gutters along the highway are filled with sand, dirt, litter and grass. It does not take much effort to get a shovel and spend 30 minutes each month to clean the gutters in front of your business.
I also would like to challenge each homeowner to clean the gutters in front of their homes. Until the city is able to purchase a street sweeper we need to stand up and help the city government by making a little effort in helping our wonderful community look better. Atmore stands to experience a huge growth in the next several years. Each citizen of our community needs to help our city become a place where people want to live, and take pride in the way our city looks. Come on people of our community, help me help our city and adjacent communities.
Atmore's Recycle Now has taken a giant step in helping out our community by setting up a Recycle Center near the Farmers Market. We all should do our part in supporting this most worthwhile effort. But we need to do better in placing our recycled materials in the bins that are provided. The bins are NOT there for electronic equipment such as TVs and trash that can not be recycled. Please sort your materials as directed by the signs in the bins. The bins are there for plastics, aluminum cans and cardboard boxes. Newspapers and magazines should be placed in the smaller brown bins. It does not take a lot of effort and it will help our environment and our community. Any monies made from this recycling effort goes to our library fund. So we help the landfills and our city library.
Foster Kizer is owner of Royal Oaks Bed &Breakfast. He can be reached at 368-8722.