County officials hopes to call further attention to littering problem in South Bend

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. -- One St. Joseph County official is trying to further curb littering in the area near Portage Manor.

Derek Dieter is the St. Joseph County surveyor and is once again doing an event to try and bring awareness to how bad the local littering problem has become.

"Have pride in your community and pride in where you live," said Dieter.

For St. Joseph County surveyor and lifelong South Bend resident Derek Dieter, enough is enough.
Dieter is calling attention to a constant problem - littering, specifically in the area by Portage Manor.

"I've lived in 5 different houses on Portage in my lifetime so this area back when I was a kid was kind of like a Norman Rockwell painting, there was phenomenal stores, it was cool and nice, parks were clean, and that's something that perturbs me the most, is now, even kids see this and when kids see this, they see that in their mind and they think it's okay to do that."

But his irritation with the litterbugs provided an opportunity to bring people together.
For the third year in a row, Dieter and others will gather to help rid the area near Portage Manor of the trash dumped nearby.
He's not alone.

"You see one piece of trash, then there's  three, then there's five, and then people think it's okay to throw it out, and it's not, it's affecting the environment, there's a lot of wildlife out here that will be affected, let's say a deer gets something stuck on its head, it could run into the street and cause a really bad accident, we don't want that to happen," said Amanda Davidson-Melton, owner of Asylum and Sons Tattoo.

Amanda Davidson-Melton owns Asylum and Sons Tattoo shop, less than a quarter mile from the Portage Manor site.
She put out a small trash bin in front of her tattoo parlor, hoping it might reduce the littering even a little bit.

"There's trash right in front of our shop, put your trash there, we don't care that's why we have a trash can out there. There's plenty of places to dump your trash before you get on the road," said Davidson-Melton.

Both Davidson-Melton and Dieter are scratching their heads as to why this continues to happen.

"The people who are doing this, they need to get their stuff together, don't throw it out of your car, it always baffles me why anybody would want to do that but as you can see, this is just one section of the South Bend area where this stuff is all over the place," said Dieter.

Saturday's event runs from 10 am to 12 pm.

Free lunch from Chick-Fil-A will be provided, as well as discounts on tattoos at Asylum and Sons.