Keep Suffolk Beautiful

Every day is Earth Day

Earth Day Activities

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Every day is Earth DayAlthough we believe that every day is Earth Day, as we approach the official anniversary date of Earth Day – April 22 – we want to give a shout out to some beautiful ways you can be involved in this month-long celebration.

Poster with Suffolk Festival informationThe Suffolk Earth & Arts Festival will take place on April 22, 2023, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the Westminster Reformed Presbyterian Church grounds located at 3488 Godwin Blvd. in Suffolk.  The outdoor event features live music, face painting and other family-friendly activities.  Suffolk Master Gardeners will conduct a plant sale and a rain barrel workshop.  Over 70 vendors will participate, including arts and crafts, local authors, animal rescue groups, and environmental outreach organizations. There will be a beer garden by Nansemond Brewing Station and food trucks offering delicious local food.

Buckingham County Anti-Litter Task for has a unique way of encouraging volunteers to clean up litter by offering prizes of gift cards for the greatest number of bags of litter picked up! Supplies of bags, vests, and litter grabbers are available for pickup at designated times on three evenings in April.  Register today and then grab your litter grabbers to pick up litter from April 11-30, 2023!  There is additional information on the registration form.

RVA Thriving Artists is hosting a free community get together to celebrate Earth Day on April 15th from 12-3 pm at Art Works 320 Hull Street (Parking is across the street at 317 Hull).  Enjoy refreshments and make art!  Activities include rock painting, pot decorating and planting succulents to take home.  Make a braided bracelet from recycled materials.  Please register to attend.

Don’t throw it out, make it beautiful!  Learn to paint furniture like a pro at Black Dog Salvage, 902 13th Street SW in Roanoke.  There are several classes in April, including “Revamp Your Lamp” and  “Intro to Furniture Paint.”  The hands-on classes will teach you everything you need to know to breathe new life into something you might have overlooked using water-based, low VOC paint.  All materials are provided.  See more details and registration information.

As the Great Virginia Greenup continues you can conduct your own litter cleanups, trail clearing, recycling, and tree-planting activities in your community.  Remember to report your activity and results and be entered to win prizes through June 21, 2023!

Duck swimming in littered water

$500 Green Grant Award Goes to Keep Suffolk Beautiful

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Duck swimming in littered waterCongratulations to Keep Suffolk Beautiful for their Litter Prevention Award of $500!

Litter that is left in the landscape often washes into storm drains and waterways, causing clogged waterways and potential harm to aquatic wildlife and waterfowl.  In an effort to combat the problem, Keep Suffolk Beautiful will pilot a marine litter collection program that targets creeks in the City of Suffolk.  The creeks feed the Nansemond River, which subsequently flows into the James River, and then the Chesapeake Bay.

With the help of City Stormwater Specialists, the pilot program involves installing litter collecting booms across several sections of the Shingle Creek and Cedar Hill Creek. The creeks are both in the densely populated Downtown Suffolk, and installations will be located at sites that are on public land and placed close to urban drainage areas.

Waterway Boom Litter Collectors will skim the water and trap litter to one side while allowing the creek to flow naturally. Public Works employees will remove the litter on a regular schedule and record the data.  A digital record will be kept of the installation of the booms and the amount of litter collected.

Green Grant funds will be used to purchase 100 feet of boom, signage for each location, and other supplies needed for installation of the Waterway Boom Litter Collectors.

Keep Suffolk Beautiful LogoAfter the trial period, Keep Suffolk Beautiful plans to expand the program to more locations and partner with community organizations to help monitor and remove the trash.

Litter will be retrieved from the Boom Litter Collectors on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, depending on the flow and amounts of litter gathered by the collectors.  Measurements will be made, and the contents examined to determine the categories and possible sources of the litter that is collected.  This will provide vital information that can be used to disperse resources and plan future projects.

Thank you Keep Suffolk Beautiful, for the work you’re doing to improve our natural and scenic environment!

Butts Are Litter Too

Keep Suffolk Beautiful Continues to Sweep

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Keep Suffolk BeautifulKeep Suffolk Beautiful has been awarded a $500 grant in the Litter Prevention Category as part of our 30 in 30 program. The KVB grant program focuses greater resources and attention on organizations and individual localities throughout the Commonwealth and how they are addressing the issues of litter prevention, recycling, waste reduction, beautification and education.

KVB provided the opportunity for government, non-profit and/or service organizations in Virginia to apply for one of (30) grants ranging from $500 to $1,000 in three different categories: Beautification and Community Greening, Litter Prevention, and Recycling. These grants are made possible by KVB partners – Capital One, Waste Management and Lowe’s.

Keep Suffolk Beautiful’s cigarette litter prevention campaign, “Butts are Litter Too!”, will be launched on the June 2nd “Clean the Bay Day”. This campaign takes aim at the amount of cigarette butt litter in their city parks and major events. When most people think about litter, they think of paper, bottles, cans, etc., however research has shown that cigarette butts account for 38% of all litter. That equates to billions and billions of cigarettes being tossed onto our sidewalks, beaches, nature trails, gardens, and sadly playgrounds, every single day. Securing this grant ensures that the Suffolk can do its part to reduce cigarette litter and save our environment one butt at a time. They plan to educate the citizens of Suffolk by instilling in them the fact that cigarette butts are litter too. This will be accomplished by distributing cigarette litter prevention brochures and pocket ashtrays during all major City-sponsored events. They will also grab citizens’ attention through public service announcements and signage using the slogan, “Butts Are Litter Too!” Additionally, this grant will provide funds for ash receptacles in City parks both new and to replace damaged or missing units.

 

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Suffolk Battles Cigarette Litter

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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.

 

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Keep Suffolk Beautiful Wins $1,000 Grant from KVB!

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Keep Suffolk Beautiful has been awarded a $1,000 grant in the Cigarette Litter Prevention Category.  The KVB grant program focuses greater resources and attention on individual localities throughout the Commonwealth and how they are addressing the issues of litter prevention, recycling, waste reduction, beautification and education.

“Butts are litter too!”  This is the theme for Keep Suffolk Beautiful’s (KSB) comprehensive cigarette litter prevention campaign that they plan to launch to reduce the amount of cigarette butts at Suffolk parks and events.  The key to this initiative is education and KSB plans to use the grant funds to build a comprehensive educational campaign about the hazards of cigarette litter, its non-biodegradability, and its fire danger for the citizens of Suffolk.  Through public service messages and signs with their slogan “Butts are litter too!” on them, KSB plans to provide the means to reducing cigarette litter in and around Suffolk.  In addition KSB will provide more permanent cigarette receptacles in Suffolk’s parks, portable receptacles for the city’s major events, and sponsor a major clean-up event to launch and promote “Butts are litter too!”.  For more information on Keep Suffolk Beautiful and their project please contact  Hattie Lester at 757-514-7604

KVB provided the opportunity for government, non-profit and/or service organizations in Virginia to apply for one of (30) $1,000 grants in three different categories: 10 grants for plastic bag reduction and recycling, 10 grants for cigarette litter prevention, and 10 grants for community greening and beautification.  These grants are made possible by KVB’s partners, Walmart and Waste Management.

The mission at Keep Virginia Beautiful is to engage and unite Virginians to improve our natural and scenic environment.  Our goals include becoming the leading statewide voice, providing a framework for improved communication and collaboration, cultivating and supporting sustainable programs, and engaging citizens by linking them to volunteer opportunities and information through these 5 impact areas:  Litter Prevention, Waste Reduction, Recycling, Beautification, and Environmental Education.