Suffolk Battles Cigarette Litter
Butts Are Litter Too!
Suffolk puts butts in their place thanks to KVB’s grant.
Themed, “Butts Are Litter Too!,” Keep Suffolk Beautiful and the Suffolk Clean Community Commission launched a Cigarette Litter Prevention campaign to reduce the amount of cigarette butts littered in city parks and at major city-sponsored events.
The key to the success of any campaign is education. Keep America Beautiful, Inc. reports that 62% of butt litter occurs because there is no awareness, education. We planned to educate the citizens of Suffolk about the fact that cigarette butts are litter too. This was accomplished by distributing cigarette litter prevention brochures and pocket ashtrays during all Suffolk Clean Community Commission events and major City-sponsored events such as Peanut Fest and TGIF concerts. We will also grab citizens’ attention through public service messages and visual reminders using the slogan, “Butts Are Litter Too!”
We provided adequate ash receptacles in City parks. Portable receptacles were purchased for city-sponsored events. The City of Suffolk participates in Clean the Bay, a regional cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, annually. Following the day’s events, a look at the reports from the Zone Captains usually show that there were more cigarette butts collected at the cleanup sites than anything else. During last year’s Clean the Bay Day, the Zone Captain at Bennett’s Creek Park reported 1811 cigarette butts collected.
The intent of this grant is to support sustainable prevention and a measurable reduction of cigarette litter. While a few city parks already have ash receptacles, most of them did not. Study results also state that for every additional ash receptacle, the littering rate for cigarette butts decreases by nine percent. With this in mind, grant funds will primarily be used to purchase ash receptacles for the city’s five major and eight neighborhood parks. With the availability of these ash receptacles, we are hoping for proper cigarette butt disposal. The City of Suffolk’s Public Works department will provide the in kind service of emptying the ash receptacles at city parks and events.
The project was led by Hattie Lester, City of Suffolk Litter Control Coordinator and Kathy Russell, chair of the Suffolk Clean Community Commission. Ms. Lester held this position for two years and increased the city’s beautification, community greening and recycling initiatives since coming on board. She was integral in writing, attaining, and administering a $10,000 Waste Management grant through Keep America Beautiful, Inc. after only being with the city a year. The grant was used to implement a Recycling Rangers paper recycling program in two Suffolk Public Schools. She incorporated quarterly recycling drives in the Litter Control Program and has increased the number of community and neighborhood cleanups in the city by 50 percent. Kathy Russell is the Educational Representative with Tidewater Fiber Company (TFC Recycling). She has been with TFC Recycling for six and a half years. However, she has been in the waste management industry since 1994. TFC Recycling provides recycling services for cities of Suffolk, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach, Virginia.