Keep Baton Rouge Beautiful, Inc., an anti-litter organization in Baton Rouge, will be participating
in the Great American Clean Up on March 20, 2010, from 8:00 am until noon.
Founded in 1982 as a charter affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, Inc., the group was formed by community leaders in reaction to the need for an active role in the community through litter reduction, promoting beautification and enhancing educational curricula in local schools. These goals are all geared toward making a long-term impact on community attitudes toward litter. Since forming, the Board of Directors has included among its membership community leaders from all corners of the Greater Baton Rouge Area, in local and state government, K-12 and higher education, commerce, communications, industry and the non-profit sector.
For more than 26 years, KBRB has striven to build awareness of the litter issue through outreach, education, community involvement and cleanup events. One of the events that KBRB participates in each year is the annual International Coastal Clean Up, which is sponsored by the Ocean Conservancy. Always held on the third Saturday in September across the world, KBRB’s participation is in the form of a Beach Sweep in the Baton Rouge area. The goal of the Beach Sweep is to collect thousands of pounds of trash that would otherwise continue to blight local waterways. This year, the group targeted Baton Rouge Beach near the LSU campus, River Road South in downtown Baton Rouge and Banks Elementary School in the Scotlandville area.
Sept. 19, 2009, marked KBRB’s 15th annual Beach Sweep, which was coordinated in partnership with local government, local schools and universities, community organizations and businesses.
“Our turnout has been positive and we hope to keep the word out as additional volunteers are always welcome,” said Gwen Emick, Executive Director of Keep Baton Rouge Beautiful. The group is also part of part of the Ocean Conservancy, which aims to clean up trash to prevent infiltration into local water bodies.
Volunteers cleaned up around Baton Rouge Beach on Stanford Avenue, while additional volunteers canvassed the downtown area and along the Mississippi River Levee. Several groups cleaned up their individual neighborhoods, schools and local streets. A total of around 150 volunteers removed more than 128 bags of trash, equating to more than 2,560 pounds of trash.
“Despite the arrival of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, last year’s Beach Sweep was also a great success,” said Emick. “Around 100 volunteers collected approximately 170 bags of trash, along with six stacks of storm refuse (measuring eight-feet wide by eight-feet tall). Participation by LSU students at the downtown location, especially by student athletes, was the greatest in recent memory.”
The group reports that cigarette butts are the most frequent form of trash seen by volunteers. It is a common problem, as many smokers discard cigarette butts without a thought that the nicotine in those butts can lead into waterways and be toxic to animal life in and around those waterways.
From the very beginning, KBRB has served the Baton Rouge area through its promotion of public interest in the general improvement of the environment. Their main avenue for this is through the coordination and support of programs pertaining to litter control and city beautification. This has been accomplished through the establishment and expansion of a number of well-received programs. New programs are continuously being developed, and established programs are continuously modified for better impact.
Along with the Beach Sweep and the Great American Clean Up, KBRB participates in programs such as the Clean Business of the Year Awards Program, the Litter Index, the Cigarette Butt Anti-Litter Campaign, Waste-In-Place Workshops, Trash Your Mind Trivia CD, Anti-Litter Poster Contests, Community Breakfasts, Community Outreach Programs and grants for specific initiatives.
For more information on how you can help with their Great American Clean-Up on March 20, contact Keep Baton Rouge Beautiful, Inc., online at www.kbrb.org or call them at 225-381-0860.
To see picures of previous cleanups, go here