Georgia’s Coast Is Not An Ashtray is a campaign that involves seven coastal communities. The campaign is a comprehensive coastal initiative focused on cigarette litter near bodies of water: the ocean, streams, rivers, lakes, and ponds.
The initiative is led by Lea King-Badyna, the director for Keep Golden Isles Beautiful, and a joint task force with other coastal counties that came together to battle against the nation’s number one most littered item: cigarette butts! Liberty County had 40 restaurants, bars, and other companies that supported the campaign: 1. Melody’s Coastal Café 2. Angie’s Diner 3. Captain Joe’s Seafood 4. Hew 5. Smokin Pig, 6. Pizza Peddler 7. Hops On Fire Brewing Company 8. Sunbury Crab Co. 9. Rosenhof German Restaurant 10. Good To Go Jamaican Restaurant 11. Shake Shop 12. Adobo Filipino Restaurant 13. OD Crab House 14. Flacos House Hinesville 15. Rodeo Mexican Restaurant 16. Kyoto Japanese Steakhouse 17. JJ’S Bar & Grill 18. Applebee’s Grill & Bar 19. Golden Hibachi Buffet 20. The Parrot and Frog 21. Negril Caribbean Restaurant 22. Chili’s 23. LongHorn Steakhouse 24. El Cazador Mexican Restaurant 25. Veterans of Foreign Wars 26. American Legion 27. Star Lounge 28. Frozen Paradise Bar and Grill 29. Sweet Rolls Stinky Asshe - Cigar Bars 30. Latin Dreams Restaurant 31. Sawadee Thai Cuisine 32. That’s Italian Pizza & Pasta, 33. Hog N Bones 34. Sho Nuff Smokin Good BBQ 35. Peking Gourmet 36. Won Ton 37. Doodles Billiards 38. Keep Liberty Beautiful Office 39. Fang’s Island Food and Arcade 40. Omelette Cafe Here in Liberty County, we have added a program called Liberty County Proud and Beautiful that will continue year-round. You may wonder why KLB created Liberty County Proud and Beautiful. It is because cigarette butts are made of cellulose acetate, a type of plastic. Cigarette butts do not readily biodegrade. Discarded butts have a negative impact as land litter, which is bad enough because wildlife can also mistake them for food and eat them.
Cigarette butts are blown into storm drains or tossed directly into water sources; this toxic litter becomes marine debris, leaking chemicals into our waterways. With coastal Georgia’s proximity to the Atlantic Ocean and the abundance of streams, rivers, lakes, creeks, salt and freshwater marshes, and ponds, cigarette litter can devastate all bodies of water.
To help battle this situation, Keep Liberty Beautiful has the chance to work with incredible community partners within Liberty County, such as our excellent Keep Liberty Beautiful Advisory Board, the Liberty County Board of Commissioners, the Liberty County Road & Solid Waste Department, the Liberty County Convention & Visitors Bureau, and the Liberty County Chamber of Commerce, on cigarette litter prevention.
Our goal at Keep Liberty Beautiful is to promote awareness and achieve a reduction of cigarette litter in Liberty County and Fort Stewart with the Liberty County Proud and Beautiful program. Because cigarette butts are so small, some people do not think they are littering. We love working with businesses throughout Liberty County by placing free cigarette butt receptacles in their area. We then ask the owners to collect and dispose of the cigarette waste properly or ship them off to be recycled.
With the Liberty County Proud and Beautiful cigarette litter prevention program, we can
• Offer two types of free cigarette waste receptacles: stand alone and wall or pole Mounted
• Place cigarette waste receptacle educational signage and signage in critical locations and distribute pocket and car cigarette butt ashtrays.
• Provide awareness of cigarette litter prevention through radio public service announcements, local and social media promotions, including one-minute educational videos, and unique drink coaster outreach in local restaurants and bar establishments.
We invite all businesses in Liberty County to request a cigarette waste receptacle if they need one while supplies last. We are also looking for volunteers to be on the No Butts About It Squad. This group of volunteers would visit businesses, help empty the cigarette waste receptacles, and ship the cigarettes off for recycling. Kickin’ Butts - One Butt At A Time is their motto!
If you would like to be involved, contact us at Keep Liberty Beautiful at email klcb@libertycountyga. gov or call (912) 880-4888. You can also go to our website, www. keeplibertybeautiful.org, for more information.
Rivers Alive Cleanups has started. The next cleanup is our Beach Sweep for St Catherine’s Island on October 19 from 7:30-11 a.m. The countywide Rivers Alive cleanup is on October 26. KLB provides all the cleanup supplies, and we have free T-shirts while supplies last. We have 550 Rivers Alive T-shirts available this year, so join us to get yours. Contact us at the Keep Liberty Beautiful office at (912) 880-4888 or email klcb@libertycountyga.gov.
Please check our website, www.keeplibertybeautiful. org, for information on all our upcoming events.