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Some virus prevention measures lead to litter

Grocery store owners say attempts by customers to protect themselves from the coronavirus may be putting employees at risk.

BLAKELY, Pa. — For many of us, a trip to the grocery store is a necessary evil these days.

People are coming up with all types of ways to protect themselves when going into a crowded store for food.

"I am wiping down everything before I bring it in. I change my clothes; outside headline clothes outside and the inside clothes inside," said Paul Silvestri.

Paul Silvestri also wears gloves when collecting groceries, but store owners say some proactive shoppers are now putting their employees at risk.

You'll find latex gloves and used sanitizer wipes littering many grocery store parking lots, including at Quinn's Market in Peckville.

"It's been really crazy, you know? We're trying to keep everybody safe from the germs and everything, but they're just throwing the gloves all over the parking lot as well as the sanitizer wipes," said Dana Diskin, Quinn's Market.

Dana Diskin says some days it may waste an hour of an employee's time to pick up the litter outside.

Customers say they've noticed the mess, too.

"They need to watch what they're doing. They don't want anyone else cleaning up for them," Margaret Petrosky said.

"it's wrong," Sharon Unovitch said. "They can take them with them and put them on the floor of the car and dispose of them when they get home."

Grocery store owners told Newswatch 16 they're thinking about adding extra trash cans in their parking lots to make it easy for people to dispose of gloves and wipes properly.

"We just want to tell people, we want everyone to be safe and everyone to practice the social distancing, but if you could throw the stuff right in the garbage and respect us because we're putting our lives on the line being here every day. We don't really have the time, and we can't really be cleaning up after that stuff."

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