Keep Pickens Beautiful was recently awarded a grant through Keep America Beautiful’s Cigarette Litter Prevention Program (CLPP). Through this grant, KPB purchased 23 cigarette litter receptacles that are available for free to local businesses – first come, first served, so contact KPB today if you’re interested.
According to Keep America Beautiful:
In the 2020 KAB National Litter Study, 9 out of 10 littered items counted were 4″ and less, with cigarette butts being the number one littered item in this category accounting for 9.7 billion butts counted on any given day in the U.S.
The Cigarette Litter Prevention Program (CLPP), now in its 21st year, is the nation’s largest program aimed at reducing cigarette litter. Communities implementing a Cigarette Litter Prevention Program, consistently reduce cigarette litter by half based on local measurements taken in.
As part of the CLPP grant, KPB will maintain the containers for a minimum of five years. The cigarette butts will be collected and recycled through the Terracycle program. In their Santa Fe facility, Terracycle first zaps the cigarette butts using gamma radiation to clean and sterilize them, and then they shred them to separate the paper, filters, and tobacco. The paper is recycled, the tobacco is composted, and the filters are processed into a usable material that can be repurposed into items like picnic tables.
In the past, when KPB has offered cigarette litter receptacles to local businesses, they purchased sand to weigh the units down and to fill the bucket inside that collects the used butts. Our local Pickens Recycling Center now has a glass crusher, so they are using that glass in the containers currently being distributed. This is an example of recycling at it’s best!
If you are interested in securing a cigarette litter collection container for your business, school, or organization, contact Keep Pickens Beautiful. They will brand the container with your logo so the community will see that you care about helping to keep our streets butt free!Next time you’re in Jasper, check out the new containers at LC Tacos and Margaritas and at the First Mountain Tasting Room. Additional containers from KPB’s 2020 initiative can be found at the KPB office, the Carriage House, Marger Stewart Law, Farmer’s Insurance, McCurdy and Lowman, H&R Block, JL Weaver Law, and the Pickens Progress parking lot (in the herb garden near the giant rosemary). Join the anti-cigarette-butt team today!
Contact Keep Pickens Beautiful if you’d like to join the Cigarette Litter Prevention Program: www.KeepPieckensBeautiful.org or 706-253-3600.