program locations or venues
City Centers.
Many community cigarette litter prevention programs focus on a downtown area. And for good reason. City blocks with high-density retail, nightlife, and tourism are likely to have a real need for cigarette butt litter prevention and education.
They are also home to many transition points, areas where a smoker must extinguish a cigarette before proceeding, such as outside retail stores, hotels, office buildings, and at bus shelters and train platforms. A full 30% of litter at transition points is cigarette butts, and pedestrians are the source of 95.8% of litter at these areas.1
Downtown areas can benefit from all aspects of the Cigarette Litter Prevention Program, including distribution of pocket ashtrays and strategically placed ash receptacles. Downtown areas are also ideal for targeted media and education campaigns. Consider partnering with the local downtown association.
1"Littering in America" 2009 KAB Research
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We’ve found the impact of this [cigarette litter] program is profound. While focusing on a litter habit that most people don’t even consider litter, we are finding that it brings a greater concentration to the litter program overall. Once people realize that something as small as a cigarette butt can cause such adverse affects to our environment, they recognize the bigger problem of all litter.
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Frank Adams, |
“We distributed pocket ashtrays to smokers throughout downtown Jacksonville to keep butts from washing into the St. John’s River, a tremendous natural resource which the City has spent years working to protect and enhance”
Vivian Harrell, Keep Jacksonville Beautiful, FL
“The cigarette butt count showed a dramatic improvement [nearly 80% reduction] following the purchase and placement of cigarette receptacles in the target areas. Our ambassadors were also proactive in distributing pocket ashtrays to smokers within our Downtown which proved effective.”
Linda Fry, Downtown Akron Partnership, Akron, OH
In 2008 through 2010, communities implementing a Cigarette Litter Prevention Program cut cigarette butt litter in half. Some reported as much as a 73% reduction.
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