The Marshall County Solid Waste Department is winning the war on litter in the county.

The department was selected from a group of 30 Tennessee counties as the 2017 Award of Excellence winner for their programs aimed at reducing litter.

Assistant Director Doug Giles and supervisor of litter programs Glen White picked up the award, sponsored by the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Keep Tennessee Beautiful program.

Along with the award, the department received an additional $3,000 grant from the state to bolster their efforts at reducing litter in the county.

TDOT based the award on the success of the department’s ongoing efforts to reduce and remove litter from the county’s roads and events.

White coordinates the inmate crews who pick up along county roads, as well as the department’s efforts at special events, such as the Tractor Pull in Chapel Hill, area horse shows, and high school sporting events across the county

An estimated five tons of recyclables were collected this past year at those events.

Giles has presented the litter education program to 3,000 county students in the elementary grades over the past year, doubling the number from the previous year.

Additional education and improved clean up efforts led to a decrease overall in the amount of litter collected in the county.

The county litter programs are partially funded by grant funds from TDOT.