On June 16, Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful announced it has received a $20,000 grant from Keep America Beautiful to continue their work with the Keep America Beautiful Cigarette Litter Prevention Program (CLPP).

This is the tenth year that KPB received funding from the national organization.

Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful will again partner with the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources focusing on Pennsylvania State Parks.

To combat against cigarette litter, the program advocates that participating communities focus on three primary types of cigarette littering interventions; public messaging, infrastructure placement, or a combination of both.

“With our smoke-free beach program now in place at most of our state park waterfront operations, we are seeing a more than 95 percent reduction in cigarette litter in these specific areas,” said DCNR Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn. “However, this type of cleanup still diverts park personnel from much more meaningful tasks they could be addressing. We welcome Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful’s continuing support in combatting this problem.”   

“Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful is honored to continue our relationship with DCNR. Pennsylvania’s state parks are recreational treasures for residents and visitors of Pennsylvania. We can’t think of a better place to implement the Cigarette Litter Prevention program. Thanks to Keep America Beautiful, we can continue to invest in this highly effective program,” said Shannon Reiter, President of Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful.  

Keep America Beautiful provided individual merit-based grants, totaling more than $500,000, to 47 organizations throughout the country, including Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful. Grants were presented to Keep America Beautiful affiliates, local governments, business improvement districts, downtown associations, parks and recreation commissions, and other organizations dedicated to eradicating litter and beautifying their communities.

Communities implementing the CLPP in 2019 reported an average 51 percent reduction of cigarette litter.

Other recipients in Pennsylvania include Monroe Solid Waste Authority, who also received $20,000 to implement the Cigarette Litter Prevention Program in their service area. The grant will help encourage better habits of pedestrians and tourists in the downtown areas of the Poconos.

Previously, Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful worked with the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to implement the program in various State Parks. The final scan, performed after the installation of ash receptacles, education implementation and the distribution of portable ashtrays, documented reduction rates of up to 89%.

“The Cigarette Litter Prevention Program grants empower communities to help mitigate the economic, environmental, and quality-of-life impact of cigarette littering,” said Jerred Jones, program director for the CLPP. “Access to ash receptacles and the dissemination of public education are useful tools to help reduce the most commonly littered item in our litter stream.”

The CLPP, created by Keep America Beautiful in 2002, is the nation's largest program aimed at eliminating cigarette butt and cigar tip litter. Since its inception, the program has been successfully implemented in more than 1,800 urban, suburban, and rural communities nationwide.

Over the past decade, participating communities have consistently cut cigarette butt litter by 50 percent based on local measurements taken in the first four months to six months after program implementation. 

Research has shown that even self-reported “non-litterers” often don’t consider tossing cigarette butts on the ground to be "littering." 

Keep America Beautiful has found that cigarette butt litter occurs most often at transition points—areas where a person must stop smoking before proceeding into another area. These include bus stops, entrances to stores and public buildings, and the sidewalk areas outside of bars and restaurants, among others.  

The Cigarette Litter Prevention Program is supported by funding from Philip Morris USA; RAI Services Company; and the Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company.

For more information on programs, initiatives and special events, visit the Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful website. Click Here to become a member.  Click Here to sign up for regular updates from KPB, Like them on Facebook, Follow on Twitter, Discover them on Pinterest and visit their YouTube Channel.

Also visit the Illegal Dump Free PA website for more ideas on how to clean up communities and keep them clean and KPB’s Electronics Waste website.

The  2020 Pick Up Pennsylvania Initiative is postponed until September 1 through November 30.  Questions should be directed to Michelle Dunn at 1-877-772-3673 Ext. 113 or send email to: mdunn@keeppabeautiful.org.

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[Posted: June 16, 2020]

6/22/2020