FALLBROOK – Over 45 volunteers attended the Fallbrook Beautification Alliance "Keeping Fallbrook Litter-Free" Program Kick-Off Jan. 12, in spite of waking to morning showers.
The program attracted interested and environmentally conscientious residents who were excited to be a part of the new ambitious program, aimed at cleaning up 48 square miles of Fallbrook, represented by 20 newly created "neighborhood zones."
Fourteen volunteers offered to be zone captains in their neighborhoods and welcomed the opportunity to meet other community volunteers while receiving instructions on the program's goals.
All participants were asked to make a pledge to pick up at least one 5-gallon bucket of litter each week, and were instructed on how to keep safe, have fun and build a team to help in their zone. Clean up supplies were checked out, including litter collection buckets, trash grabbers, gloves and safety vests.
FBA Event Chair Marta Donovan encouraged participants in the program to make safety their first goal, wear their new FBA Litter Free vests and work gloves. She reminded volunteers to avoid venturing out on busy roads where there is not a pedestrian pathway.
FBA will work with the Fallbrook Senior Patrol to coordinate safe times to cleanup the busy roads and will ask volunteers to work in groups with a black and white patrol car in support.
Jean Dooley, FBA board member and zone captain, spoke about FBA's cigarette butt recycling efforts. Working with partner TerraCycle, FBA has already collected 15,678 units, which represents approximately 15 pounds of cigarette butts diverted from landfills and the environment.
This waste, primarily collected in FBA provided cigarette disposal units along the Pico Promenade, will be remanufactured by TerraCycle. Donovan demonstrated a simple method to keep cigarette butts separate from other litter while participating in the cleanup.
Todd Jester, FIS specialist from FPUD who designed the zone map for the program, also agreed to be a zone captain in his area. His FBA zone map may be viewed at
http://arcg.is/0isSqC.
Other helpful information was provided to the group, including numbers to call to report graffiti, illegally dumped items, potholes or crimes and the proper way to dispose of items that do not go in curbside trash or recycling. All this information is available on FBA's website.
Following the kick-off, volunteers joined I Love A Clean San Diego in cleaning the roads and open space surrounding Don Dussault Park on Alturas Road. The family-friendly county park which is edged by neighborhoods and open space, had become littered with trash, hazardous materials and other discarded items.
Participants also learned that Fallbrook falls in both the Santa Margarita and San Luis Rey watersheds, which follow waterways to the ocean. Storm drains found throughout Fallbrook are not designed to filter out trash, rather their purpose is to move water off streets during a storm.
Trash, cigarettes, pet waste, oil and pesticides, dropped or washed into gutters in Fallbrook, may quickly end up in the ocean. Which is another reason to capture trash at its source, all while beautifying Fallbrook.
Volunteers spread out along Alturus Road, collecting over 300 pounds of trash, over 100 pounds of recycling and a wide range of hazardous waste, including one vape pen, four household batteries, five needles, two broken glass pipes, one blue gas tank, one tire and one television. With the help of I Love A Clean San Diego, these hazardous materials were disposed of in a safe manner.
Volunteers also identified several bulky/large items which would require follow-up collection, as well as abandoned grocery carts. All illegally dumped items were called in for proper removal and disposal.
FBA is hoping to fill the additional six zone captain spots soon and there is space for an unlimited number of volunteers to join existing teams. Anyone interested in being a part of this exciting community wide effort should contact Donovan at (760) 405-4054 or go to FBA website
http://www.fallbrookbeautification.org.
All participants must complete a waiver form before joining a team to picking up litter for the program.
High resolution images available at
https://villagenews.smugmug.com/Morning-showers-dont-dampen-FBA-volunteers-spirits-
One of the 20 newly-installed cigarette waste recycling receptacles. The City of Kingston installed the cigarette butt disposal units on Tuesday, April. 2, 2019. Submitted photo.
Another of the newly-installed Terracycle cigarette waste recycling receptacles installed by the City of Kingston on Tuesday, Apr. 2, 2019. Submitted photo.
Kingston Transit users and those who frequent the downtown core might notice some new cigarette butt receptacles have been installed along their regular routes.
And while they may look like any ordinary cigarette butt disposal bins, these receptacles are actually just the first step in a bigger process – and one that diverts the waste of spent cigarettes from landfills entirely.
“We are working to keep the downtown and transit hubs clean. This is about encouraging people to dispose of cigarette butts in a tidy and environmentally friendly way,” said Troy Stubinski, manager of public works operations for the City of Kingston.
According to Sarah Withrow, communications officer with the City of Kingston, after purchasing the receptacles at $100 per unit, there will be no cost to the City to have the cigarette butts recycled.
“Receptacles will be collected by staff on existing trash collection routes. Aside from the $100 per unit to purchase the receptacles, there is no cost to the program,” she said.
TerraCycle, the world’s leader in the collection and repurposing of complex waste streams, has joined forces with Keep Liberty Beautiful (KLB), a Keep America Beautiful affiliate, to collect and recycle cigarette butts throughout Liberty County and Fort Stewart.
“Because cigarette butts are so small, some people do not think they are littering,” said KLB Executive Director Karen Bell. “By working with volunteers throughout Liberty County to conduct cleanups and recycle the cigarette butts it brings awareness to the cigarette litter prevention program.” She also said, “We will 50 cigarette receptacles that Liberty County businesses, parks, restaurants, and bars can have for free! We will have volunteers that will empty the receptacles and ship them off to be recycled.”
Through this program, KLB is not only addressing the nation’s most commonly littered item but also a form of unbiodegradable plastic waste. Since implementing cigarette receptacles in 2014, Keep Liberty Beautiful has raised awareness and furthered their goal of achieving cigarette litter reduction throughout Liberty County and Fort Stewart.
KLB has placed cigarette receptacles in a variety of locations throughout the county including but not limited to: three in Riceboro Creek, one in the Midway Community Complex, one in Half Moon Marina and six at bus stops along General Screven Way. KLB currently maintains a total of thirteen cigarette receptacles throughout the county and ships all collected waste to TerraCycle for recycling.
When processed, the paper and tobacco is separated from the filter and composted. The filter is recycled into plastic pellets which can be used by manufacturers to make a number of products such as shipping pallets, ashtrays and park benches.
“These receptacles will help keep Liberty County free of one of the most littered items on the planet,” said Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle. “With this program, KLB is taking a step to reduce the amount of trash going to landfill while also preserving the area’s natural beauty.”
TerraCycle has collected hundreds of millions of cigarette butts globally. Additionally, through its various recycling programs, it has engaged over 100 million people across 21 countries to collect and recycle more than four billion pieces of waste that were otherwise non-recyclable.
Visitors to Middleburg might notice streets that aren’t as littered with cigarette butts as there were in previous years.
Since last year, the town has encouraged smokers to dispose of their cigarette butts in special receptacles that it installed on the sides of trashcans along Washington, Federal and Marshall streets. The town’s maintenance department collects the butts and hands them over to the Go Green Committee to be shipped to TerraCycle, an international waste management company that has recycled nearly 58 tons of cigarette waste since 2012.
Councilman Peter Leonard-Morgan, the committee’s Town Council liaison, said the initiative to clean the town’s streets of cigarette butts kicked off in spring 2017, after volunteers for the town’s bi-annual cleanup event reported finding hundreds of them in the roads, sidewalks, parking lots, bushes and storm drains.
“By the time I was done picking all those up, I was kind of thoroughly grossed out,” said Lynne Kaye, the town’s sustainability consultant and a Go Green Committee volunteer.
Kaye said that after that experience, she went online to find out more about the hazards of littered cigarette butts and came across TerraCycle’s recycling program. Following a trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada, where she noticed cigarette-recycling receptacles attached to trashcans, Kaye proposed a town partnership with TerraCycle—something George Mason University and Northern Virginia Community College are also doing.
Last spring, the Town Council approved that partnership and the $2,135 purchase of 13tube-shaped receptacles, which measure a little more than a foot in height, attach to the sides of trashcans across town and were halfway funded by a Virginia Department of Environmental Quality Litter Prevention and Recycling Grant.
Almost a year later, Middleburg’s cigarette butt recycling program is a well-oiled process that’s working to rid the town of potentially toxic cigarette filters, which are made of a non-biodegradable plastic that can contaminate the water system when washed into storm drains. According to the Clean Virginia Waterways nonprofit, one cigarette butt is enough to contaminate two gallons of water.
“Once those cigarette butts get littered, they sort of never go away,” Kaye said.
Twice a month, Maintenance Superintendent Tim Cole collects the butts from the receptacles and hands them to Leonard-Morgan, who sends them off to TerraCycle every few months.
The company then separates the components. The paper and tobacco are composted into soil or fertilizer. The filters are melted into a hard plastic, which is distributed to different manufacturers to turn into products like shipping pallets, ashtrays and park benches. “It’s amazing what they can pull out of these little filters,” Leonard-Morgan said.
TerraCycle publicist Alex Payne said that the town has sent in 7 pounds of cigarette butts. “This may not sound like much, but it’s fairly significant considering Middleburg’s size,” he said.
Moving forward, Leonard-Morgan said that aside from the committee posting about the initiative on its Facebook and Instagram profiles, there’s not too much it can do to encourage smokers to stop snuffing their cigarette butts out on the ground, since the practice has virtually always been accepted in most societies.
“It’s been happening for a hundred years,” he said. “It’s very hard to get people to stop doing that.”
Kaye said that the town would work to attract more attention to the initiative and discuss with business owners the possibility of installing their own cigarette butt recycling receptacles.
“The biggest challenge is getting people to use the receptacles,” she said. “We really want people to know they’re there and to use them.”
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