Cigarette Litter Prevention Program
Keep America Beautiful provided individual merit-based grants, totaling more than $500,000, to 47 organizations throughout the country, including Keep Thomas County Beautiful. Grants were presented to Keep America Beautiful affiliates, local governments, business improvement districts, downtown associations, parks and recreation commissions, and other organizations dedicated to eradicating litter and beautifying their communities. Communities implementing the CLPP in 2019 reported an average 51 percent reduction of cigarette litter.
As part of the 2020 grant program, Keep America Beautiful is focusing on three primary types of cigarette littering interventions. Applicants will have the opportunity to focus on cigarette litter reduction through public messaging, infrastructure placement, or a combination of both.
“The Cigarette Litter Prevention Program grants empower communities to help mitigate the economic, environmental, and quality-of-life impact of cigarette littering,” said Jerred Jones, program director for the CLPP. “Access to ash receptacles and the dissemination of public education are useful tools to help reduce the most commonly littered item in our litter stream.”
The CLPP, created by Keep America Beautiful in 2002, is the nation's largest program aimed at eliminating cigarette butt and cigar tip litter. Since its inception, the program has been successfully implemented in more than 1,800 urban, suburban, and rural communities nationwide. Over the past decade, participating communities have consistently cut cigarette butt litter by 50 percent based on local measurements taken in the first four months to six months after program implementation.
Research has shown that even self-reported “non-litterers” often don’t consider tossing cigarette butts on the ground to be "littering." Keep America Beautiful has found that cigarette butt litter occurs most often at transition points—areas where a person must stop smoking before proceeding into another area. These include bus stops, entrances to stores and public buildings, and the sidewalk areas outside of bars and restaurants, among others.
As part of the 2020 grant program, Keep America Beautiful is focusing on three primary types of cigarette littering interventions. Applicants will have the opportunity to focus on cigarette litter reduction through public messaging, infrastructure placement, or a combination of both.
“The Cigarette Litter Prevention Program grants empower communities to help mitigate the economic, environmental, and quality-of-life impact of cigarette littering,” said Jerred Jones, program director for the CLPP. “Access to ash receptacles and the dissemination of public education are useful tools to help reduce the most commonly littered item in our litter stream.”
The CLPP, created by Keep America Beautiful in 2002, is the nation's largest program aimed at eliminating cigarette butt and cigar tip litter. Since its inception, the program has been successfully implemented in more than 1,800 urban, suburban, and rural communities nationwide. Over the past decade, participating communities have consistently cut cigarette butt litter by 50 percent based on local measurements taken in the first four months to six months after program implementation.
Research has shown that even self-reported “non-litterers” often don’t consider tossing cigarette butts on the ground to be "littering." Keep America Beautiful has found that cigarette butt litter occurs most often at transition points—areas where a person must stop smoking before proceeding into another area. These include bus stops, entrances to stores and public buildings, and the sidewalk areas outside of bars and restaurants, among others.
Cigarette Litter Prevention Program Grant - 2020
In 2020 KTCB received a $2500 cigarette litter prevention program grant from Keep America Beautiful. KTCB used about $750 of the funds to purchase nine cigarette receptacles (see left photo), for Balfour Dog Park and Cherokee Lake Park in Thomasville. KTCB is partnering with the City of Thomasville Parks and Recreation to install and maintain the receptacles. The second picture (top right) shows cigarette butts that were collected at Balfour Park as part of a preliminary report for the location prior to installing receptacles. The remainder of the grant funds ($1750) were used for community education and cigarette litter prevention outreach campaign. The cigarette litter prevention video (bottom right) was created as part of that campaign.
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