People routinely have three schools of thought when it comes to keeping clean the area in which they live. One is to sit back and wait for someone else to do it. Second is to just live with the mess and look the other way. And third is to be like the Warren County Bridge Commission.

Superintendent Herman Smith Jr. — yes, the boss of the commission — and foreman Don McClure were pictured on the front page of this newspaper on July 20, trash bags in hand, making the area along South Washington Street near the bridge “beautiful.”

The two men were out working alongside two other Bridge Commission employees in what Smith said will be regular cleanup days to give visitors a cleaner perception of Vicksburg.

Further, no one asked the commissioners to clean up that area. They did not just look at it and drive past. They did not wait for someone else to clean it. They asked permission for the additional duties to supplement the usual cleanup provided by the Mississippi Department of Transportation.

BRAVO!

The Bridge Commission is not the first, or the only, group whose members took it upon themselves to clean up the place. Civic and social organizations will have cleanup days in parks and playgrounds — and we applaud all of them as well.

It is a sincere hope that the photograph of the superintendent and the foreman picking up trash will spur other businesses and organizations to take it upon themselves to clean up and make Warren County beautiful.

Of the three responses to litter, we hope everyone takes the third approach, the Bridge Commission approach, to keeping our city and county clean.