DOTD litter pick-up efforts pick up during Love the Boot week

Baton Rouge, LA (April 7, 2025) – The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development continues to pick up litter across the state, and Love the Boot week is one of the highlights of the litter removal efforts. As a partner with Keep Louisiana Beautiful and all the statewide partners, DOTD staff will be out across the state removing litter during the week of April 5-13. However, this is just one day of Love the Boot week. DOTD staff continually removes litter year-round. For the fiscal year 2024, DOTD committed approximately $13.6 million to litter pickup, picking up more than 18 Olympic swimming pools worth of litter, reinforcing the state’s dedication to maintaining clean and safe roadways.

“DOTD spends more than $13 million annually removing other people’s trash from state roadways,” said DOTD Assistant Secretary of Operations Todd Donmyer. “This is tax money that could be used to repave more than 100 miles of state roadways. Because litter is 100 percent preventable, it’s very frustrating to spend time and money picking up litter in a particular location and have litter quickly regenerate in the same location.”

Thanks to $3 million in additional funding allocated by the state legislature, DOTD has recently hired a contractor to remove litter from some of the heavily traveled routes throughout the state. The initiative officially began prior to the Super Bowl in the New Orleans area, where crews removed nearly 900 cubic yards of litter. Residents throughout Louisiana can expect to see a concerted effort to remove litter from major interstates, including I-10, I-12, I-20, I-110, and I-610, as the second part of the contract recently began. The removal efforts will eventually move to some of the more populated rural routes by the end of the year.

DOTD encourages all residents to play a role in keeping Louisiana litter free by disposing of waste properly and participating in local cleanup efforts. For more information on how you can get involved, please visit www.keeplouisianabeautiful.org. You can keep up with DOTD’s efforts on the DOTD Facebook, Instagram and X platforms.