Thank you to everyone who posted your photo with a Georgia’s Coast is Not an Ashtray coaster! It was fun to see all the images and recognize the various local places they featured. We even had photos posted from our neighboring counties, which was great to see.
The campaign, Georgia’s Coast is Not an Ashtray, is almost over, but the efforts will continue. The campaign is a coastwide initiative focused on reducing cigarette litter near bodies of water, including the ocean, streams, rivers, lakes, and ponds. The initiative ran for three months, led by Lea King-Badyna, the director for Keep Golden Isles Beautiful, and a joint task force with six other coastal counties that came together to battle against the nation’s number one most littered item: cigarette butts! Here in Liberty County, we have added to that campaign with a program called Liberty County Proud and Beautiful.
Liberty County Proud and Beautiful was not just created by Keep Liberty Beautiful, but by our entire community. Cigarette butt litter prevention should be an everyday effort, and it’s our community that leads the charge.
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 Advisory Board gets the chance to work with some incredible community partners within Liberty County like the Liberty County Board of Commissioners, Liberty County Road and Solid Waste Department, Liberty County Convention and Visitors Bureau, Fort Stewart / Hunter Army Airfield BOSS Program, Liberty County Adopt Liberty Program, 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 are working with businesses throughout Liberty County to place a free cigarette butt receptacle in their area. We then ask the owners to collect and dispose of the cigarette waste properly, or ship the butts off to be recycled.
With the Liberty County Proud and Beautiful cigarette litter prevention program, we can make a significant impact on our community and environment.
• 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 containers.
• Provide outreach awareness about 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 “No Butts About” members. This group of volunteers would visit businesses, help empty the cigarette waste receptacles, and ship the cigarettes off for recycling. They will be kicking one butt at a time!
If we all picked up one cigarette butt, we could help make our community better and cleaner. 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. Your State Parks Day at Fort Morris is September 27, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon. This is not just a day of service, but a day of making a real difference in our community. Join KLB and Fort Morris for a day of service!
Please stop by and lend a helping hand as we spend the morning improving the site. We will be cleaning and clearing branches, debris, and more as we work hard to make the Fort Morris site beautiful and pristine!
Please register in advance by calling (912) 884-5999 or sign up at the KLB website: www. keeplibertybeautiful.org. You can also contact KLB at (912) 880-4888 or email us at klcb@libertycountyga. gov.