Trucker Bombs

[deuces wild]

SEATTLE — Roadside litter comes in all shapes and sizes — from dirty diapers to syringes — but there's one category that out-grosses the rest: trucker bombs.

Most drivers whiz along the nation's highways largely oblivious to their roadside surroundings. But next time you are out there, take a closer look.

"As soon as you look for it you’ll see it," says Megan Warfield, litter programs coordinator at Washington state's Department of Ecology. "You just see them glistening in the sun. It’s just gross."

They are trucker bombs, plastic jugs full of urine tossed by truckers, and even non-truckers, who refuse to make a proper potty stop to relieve themselves.

The state hasn't counted how many such jugs are found each year, but a single, small county decided to do its own tally. "In one year," Warfield says, "one crew found 2,666 bottles of urine, 67 feces covered items, not including diapers, and 18 syringes."

Disposing of trucker bombs, aka torpedoes or pee bottles, is a thankless task that in many cases falls to highway cleanup crews.

California has a hazardous waste contractor to deal with human waste. In Washington, a spill response crew is called in to dispose of large volumes of trucker bombs.

Safety experts emphasize that urine is 99 percent sterile and that jugs of it can be moved if crews avoid contact with the liquid, Warfield says. But cleanup crews remain reluctant, with some fearing the liquid could actually be something else also dumped along highways — dangerous chemicals used to make the illegal drug methamphetamine.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7912464

Disgusting. :blink:

[andsome]

There are much stronger words to describe this, but they would get me banned.