Dr. Karen Bell
Keep Liberty Beautiful
Keep Liberty Beautiful would like to thank the many restaurants, hotels, coffee shops, and bars participating in the Cigarette Litter Prevention coaster/placemat giveaway campaign “Georgia’s coast is not an ashtray” is this Friday, August 23, and continues through September 30! KLB will also give away 20 campaign T-shirts. Details on how to receive a T-shirt will be located on the KLB Facebook page.
Please look for the messaged drink coasters and placemats starting on August 23 throughout Liberty County and the nearby coastal communities. Cigarettes are made of cellulose acetate, a type of plastic. Cigarette butts do not biodegrade and are the nation’s number one most littered item.
Blown or tossed into storm drains and waterways, they become toxic litter, potentially harming sensitive ecosystems and their inhabitants.
We hope this Cigarette Litter Prevention Event helped spread the message about cigarette litter prevention. We appreciate all the support from Liberty County restaurants, cafes, hotels, coffee shops, and bars that used the messaged drink coasters and placemats. We could not have done it without them. Thank you!
We know that having everyone stop smoking is not feasible, so here are some steps I found online that we can take to help prevent cigarette butt litter: - Increasing the availability of ash receptacles and portable ashtrays - Decreasing the amount of existing litter through clean-up activities - Educating the public with motivational messages that target individual responsibility and obligation - Reviewing local litter laws, including cigarette butt litter, and supporting enforcement - Raising awareness about the issue of proper cigarette butt disposal using messaging and marketing campaigns - Placing ash receptacles at transition points to non-smoking areas such as hospitals or public parks - Distributing pocket or portable ashtrays to adult smokers who enjoy the areas surrounding and within waterways Using these strategies for preventing cigarette butt litter would help make Liberty County and surrounding areas clean, green, and cigarette butt free.
Keep Liberty Beautiful is participating in the Great Georgia Pollinator Census on August 23 and 24 at the Liberty County Community Complex in Midway. Please join us from 10 a.m. to 12 noon as we count our county’s pollinators and participate in a plant giveaway. We also have three pollinator art activities that families can do. For more information on this event, contact KLB at klcb@libertycountyga.com or (912) 880-4888.
September is a busy month for Keep Liberty Beautiful, and I cannot wait to share information on all our upcoming events! First, we have the Native Plants Awareness events. We will hand out plants and information at the Farmers Market on Thursday, September 5, and share information on native plants on our Facebook and Instagram pages.
The next event is our annual beach sweep on St Catherine’s Island on Saturday, September 7.
A beach sweep means we will be “sweeping” any trash and debris left on the beaches by beach visitors and that has washed up on the beach.
This is one of the most popular cleanups we do.
We are soliciting boaters to volunteer to provide transportation for our cleanup volunteers that day. If you have a boat and want to participate, we welcome your involvement! We book volunteers in the order we receive their requests. You can sign up at https://shorturl. at/HmEjl, email klcb@libertycountyga.com, or contact KLB at (912) 8804888 to register!
The last event in September is Your State Parks Day, on Saturday, September 28 (9 a.m. to 12 noon). Come assist with sprucing up the Fort Morris Historic Site.
To learn more about our upcoming events or ways you can be involved with Keep Liberty Beautiful, visit our website at www.keeplibertybeautiful. org. You can also contact KLB at (912) 880-4888 or email us at klcb@libertycountyga. com.