Dr. Karen Bell

Keep Liberty Beautiful

It’s that time of year when Keep Liberty Beautiful and surrounding counties focus on Cigarette Litter Prevention.

For the sixth consecutive year, entities in Georgia’s six coastal counties are continuing a joint battle against the nation’s No. 1 most littered item: cigarette butts. Providing comprehensive coverage of Georgia’s coastal area, Keep Liberty Beautiful, Keep Savannah Beautiful, Keep McIntosh Beautiful, Keep Camden Beautiful, Keep Pembroke Beautiful, Tybee Clean Beach Volunteers, the City of Tybee Island, University of Georgia Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant, and Keep Golden Isles Beautiful have again united in a coast-wide cigarette litter awareness educational initiative: Georgia’s Coast is Not an Ashtray!

During the months of July and August, the campaign will promote cigarette litter prevention awareness, and we are excited to reach our community with educational information to discourage the littering of cigarette butts. Made of cellulose acetate, a type of plastic, cigarette butts do not easily biodegrade.

Discarded butts have a negative impact as land litter, but once they’re blown into storm drains or tossed directly into water sources, this toxic litter becomes marine debris, leaching chemicals into marine and aquatic environments and potentially being ingested by those inhabitants. With coastal Georgia’s proximity to the Atlantic Ocean and its abundance of streams, rivers, lakes, creeks, salt and freshwater marshes and ponds, this coast-wide initiative focuses on cigarette butts in relation to bodies of water. Funded by a $20,000 Keep America Beautiful cigarette litter prevention program grant, the latest effort consists of the placement of cigarette waste receptacles, radio public service announcements, social media/video promotion, educational outreach, and messaged drink coaster outreach.

With the leadership of Lea King-Badyna of Keep Golden Isles Beautiful, the combined five-year effort has resulted in more than 600 public space receptacles being placed in coastal Georgia. While simultaneous project-specific outreach activities will occur in all six coastal counties during the effort, community-specific outreach activities are also encouraged.

“We hope that this Cigarette Litter Prevention project helps spread the message about cigarette litter prevention,” said Dr. Karen Bell, Keep Liberty Beautiful executive director. “We are proud to join forces with the other Georgia coastal communities in this campaign educating the Liberty County community about cigarette litter.”

For more information about Georgia’s Coast is Not an Ashtray program, contact Keep Golden Isles Beautiful at info.kbgib@gmail.com or (912) 2791490, or visit www.georgias coastisnotanashtray.org.

As part of Keep Liberty Beautiful, our mission is to inform our community to take daily green steps towards a cleaner, greener, and more beautiful place. You can participate in this mission by participating in Georgia’s Coast Is Not an Ashtray project:

• Sign up to help empty receptacles at our local bus stops.

• Receive free standalone or wall-mounted receptacles for your place of business.

• Conduct a cleanup in your area.

• Join the KLB Advisory Board.

• If you own a restaurant, bar, hotel or pub, you can use Georgia’s Coast is Not An Ashtray coasters.

• Share the information KLB provides, which is a great way to help.

Please visit Keep Liberty Beautiful on Facebook or at www.keepliberty beautiful.org, or contact us at (912) 880-4888 or klcb@libertycountyga. com for more information. Take a green step today!