Several other items from Keep Carter County Beautiful’s August meeting made the agenda that were not mentioned in the initial coverage.

E.J. Smith came to talk about wanting to join KCCB’s efforts in creating a cleaner Carter County after seeing how beautiful the region can be if maintained.

“I love living in Elizabethton,” Smith said. “I love that we have a state park.”

This love for the community, she said, turns into a desire to clean up the large amount of trash she sees on her walks.

“We need to find a way to motivate people who litter,” she said.

She said the abandoned homes she sees are the worst of it.

“It makes me want to clean it up,” Smith said.

She said she wanted to thank KCCB for providing a positive example and making people aware of the problem and ways to fix it across the county.

“They do not realize the harm they are doing,” she said. “We need to share everything we learn.”

Landfill Director Benny Lyons also gave an update on the Recycling Center situation that has plagued the county for the past month. Chairman Edward Jordan said the loss of the county’s only recycling service is killing the positive momentum KCCB has made in motivating people to recycle more. Without a recycling center, the dozens of new recycling bins they recently acquired have no purpose unless the board can find other ways to encourage people to recycle elsewhere.

Commissioner Ross Garland provided an update on the board’s efforts towards obtaining the Wayfinding Grant, saying they could get a year’s extension on the deadline. In the meantime, the board discussed where the various new signs would go.

“The majority of the signs we place will be on the highways,” Garland said.

The board briefly discussed possibly putting some of the signs on the county’s nine-mile share of the Tweetsie Trail.

The board also assigned various board members to specific sections of the county in order to begin their annual index report, which is due in October. The index report ranks the level of trash and environmental health of the region.