If the number of garbage bags picked up by the county and volunteers in the past months is any inclination of how passersby view the county, they could think it’s “trashy,” county officials said Monday.

Commissioner Carl Turman said in the last seven months of 2011, the county’s trash detail, which is headed by engineer Darren Capps, picked up 2,219 bags of garbage along Covington County’s roadways.

Commissioner Harold Elmore thanked Sheriff Dennis Meeks for supplying inmates to help with garbage pick-up, as well.

Turman said students at Straughn High School and Pleasant Home had joined into help cleanup the county.

“Some of these roads, (volunteers) have already gone back and started picking up again,” Turman said. “In fact, 397 bags were picked up in January alone.

“I think maybe we should say something,” he said. “Folks, get a garbage bag and put it in your car and stop throwing it on the rights-of-way. It makes our county look bad.”

Turman said while he and his wife were on the way to church Sunday, he noticed someone had thrown out a “whole garbage bag of stuff,” along one of the county’s roads.

“I’m going to pick up that stuff,” he said. “Everyone has a garbage can, and if they don’t, their neighbor does, who probably wouldn’t mind you using it.”

Chairman Lynn Sasser said this is an issue that the county definitely needs to address.