Keep America Beautiful, envisioning a country in which every community is a green, clean and beautiful place to live, announces the organization has opened the grant application period for the 2017 Cigarette Litter Prevention Program to help communities combat the most commonly littered item in America.
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 are encouraged to apply. The deadline for all applications is Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2017. All interested organizations should complete the online application available at . Grant winners are expected to be announced prior to March 22, 2017.
Communities implementing the Cigarette Litter Prevention Program in 2016 reported an average 60 percent reduction of cigarette litter, even greater than the previous year鈥檚 average reduction of 52 percent. Cigarette Litter Prevention Program grant funding empowers communities to help mitigate the economic, environmental and quality-of-life impact of cigarette butt littering. In 2017, Keep America Beautiful will offer individual merit-based grants in amounts of $2,500, $5,000, $10,000, and $20,000. Total grant funding for 2017 is expected to exceed $300,000.
鈥淭he increase in the number of communities participating in the Cigarette Litter Prevention Program — and the significant reduction in visible cigarette butt litter within these communities — are very promising signs,鈥� said Cecile Carson, vice president, litter and affiliate relations, Keep America Beautiful. 鈥淧roviding additional educational opportunities and increasing access to ash receptacles and portable pocket ashtrays are crucial to changing littering behaviors.鈥�
The Cigarette Litter Prevention Program, 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 1,500 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. Survey results also demonstrate that as communities continue to monitor and implement the program, those reductions are sustained or even increased over time.
By providing people with easily accessible information and educational tools, as well as funding for ash receptacles and the distribution of pocket or portable ashtrays, Keep America Beautiful is making strides in educating the public and ensuring a cleaner tomorrow. To address cigarette butt litter, Keep America Beautiful鈥檚 Cigarette Litter Prevention Program advocates that communities integrate four proven approaches:
- Encourage enforcement of litter laws, including cigarette litter;
- Raise awareness about the issue using public service messages;
- Place ash receptacles at transition points such as entrances to public buildings; and
- Distribute pocket or portable ashtrays to adult smokers.
Tobacco products, consisting mainly of cigarette butts, are the most littered item in America, representing nearly 38 percent of all items littered, according to “Litter in America,” Keep America Beautiful鈥檚 landmark 2009 study of litter and littering behavior. Research has shown that even self-reported 鈥渘on-litterers鈥� often don鈥檛 consider tossing cigarette butts on the ground to be “littering.” 聽Keep America Beautiful has found that cigarette butt litter occurs most often at transition points鈥攁reas where a person must stop smoking before proceeding into another area. 聽These include bus stops, entrances to stores and public buildings, and the sidewalk areas outside of bars and restaurants, among others.
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