Saturday, April 30, 2005
More than 220 cleanup volunteers and KKB supporters attended
the 2005 Great American Cleanup™ Trash Bash presented by
Calhoun's on-the-River. We had a great lunch, gave out lots
of certificates and other prizes and everyone got a t-shirt. Here
are some pictures from the event:
As of today, 54 groups have reported picking up more than 55,000
pounds of litter during March and April. KKB expects additional
reports from its volunteers and this does not include numbers from the Ijams
Nature Center River Rescue, CAC AmeriCorps, Knox County
Adopt-A-Road Groups (except for those groups that registered for the
Great American Cleanup™) and the Izaak Walton League.
These super groups picked up tens of thousands of pounds of trash during
March and April. We will post all their numbers later. The
poster contest had 143 students participating. Top performing
groups during the 2005 Great American Cleanup™ include: Lambda Chi
Alpha Fraternity (Greek Challenge), Old Sevier Community
Group and Western Heights Residents (tied for Neighborhood
Group), Nature's Way Montessori (Youth Group), North Knox
Rotary Club (Civic Club), Military Entrance Processing Station
(Government), Halls Crossroads Women's League (New Group) and the
Hardin Valley Neighbors (Knox County Adopt-A-Road Group).
Here are the pictures of the poster contest winners and their
families. Thanks to volunteer Michael Castle for the
photos.
- posted by KKB staff at 2:30 PM
Sunday, April 24, 2005
There's got to be a morning after. It is always
dismaying how much trash is created at a big public event. Even
though we had 36 recycle bins spread out over 6 locations, event-goers
still generated a substantial amount of trash. Here is what we
picked up the morning after Earthfest. Do you think it is a
little odd that people who go to Earthfest have trouble figuring out how
to recycle? Maybe we'll do better next year! Who knows, for
several thousand people drinking beer and eating maybe this isn't so
bad.
- posted by KKB staff at 11:15 AM
Saturday, April 23, 2005
It was a very busy day for Keep Knoxville Beautiful. At
9:00 a.m. KKB staff and volunteers were setting up our tent and 6
recycling centers at Earthfest at World's Fair Park and Tom
Salter was moderating a session at the 2nd Annual City and County
Neighborhood Conference. Board member Tim Wheeler
staffed our information table at the Neighborhood Conference.
About 20 people attended the session where Dr. Paul Kelley, Scott
Frith, Terry Faulkner and Bob Santore shared their
experiences leading beautification efforts in their neighborhoods.
It was a great session - you should have been there.
All the rest of the day we were down at World's Fair Park celebrating
Earthfest. Helping out most of the day were KKB staffers Emily
Ditty and Seed Lynn and volunteers Mike Castle, Joyce
Hausman, Larissa Jurand-Salter and Ryan Justice. KKB
board members Phyllis Fansler, Cassandra McGee and Susan Long and
her daughter worked most of the day also. We especially want to
thank members of the West Knoxville Optimist Club and Beta
Alpha Psi and UTK business fraternity for staffing two of our
recycling and waste disposal centers all day. The KKB booth was
busy all day. We sold Don't Throw Down on K-TOWN shirts and
stickers. More than 150 people voted for their favorite Don't
Thrown Down on K-TOWN posters in our big poster contest. We
apologize to any poster contest students or family members who came to
see the show after 3:30. At that time a big gust of wind broke
some wires in our booth and the whole poster hanging system
collapsed. Here are some pictures of our booth and volunteers:
We are pleased to announce the following winners of the 2005 Great
American Cleanup™ poster contest. The students, their
parents and their teacher are invited to the Great American Cleanup™ Trash
Bash presented by Calhoun's on-the-River next Saturday, April
30th to be honored for their efforts. The walking Sunsphere
is my personal favorite. Here are the winning posters:
(below l-r) Tied for 3rd Place in Elementary Division, McKenzie Schleicher
and Emma Mathes, both of Nature's Way Montessori School.
(below l-r) 2nd Place Elementary Division, Nathan Wright, Sequoyah
Elementary School; 1st Place Elementary Division, Kitti Kertesz,
Pond Gap Elementary School.
(below l-r) Middle School Division, 3rd Place Winner Caleb Pleasant,
2nd Place Winner Jazmond Wright and 1st Place Winner Justin
Wright, all of Vine Middle Magnet School.
(below l-r) High School Winners are 3rd Place Anastasia Barnes, 2nd
Place Dina Siedschlag and 1st Place Bailey Priest all of Bearden
High School.
After the awards luncheon next week, the posters will on display at The
Emporium at 100 S. Gay Street for several weeks.
Here are a couple of other post-event pics. John Evans, Rodney
Rockett and Sara Hart (all of the Knox County Solid Waste
Department) disassemble one of the information booths and Joyce
Hausman (a top volunteer of KKB) is taking a well-deserved rest on the
tailgate of her truck.
- posted by KKB staff at 11:05 PM
Friday, April 22, 2005
Happy Earthday 2005 to everyone. Here is a neat graphic
we ran for Earthday last year. I like it so I'm running it again:
Make sure you attend Earthfest tomorrow at World's Fair
Park. It will be a lot of fun. It is free and open from
10:00 am to 10:00 pm. There will be information booths, food and
entertainment. KKB will have Don't Thrown Down t-shirts and
stickers for sale at our booth.
Here is a follow up to yesterday's litter cartoon:
- posted by KKB staff at 8:43 AM
Thursday, April 21, 2005
It's just like peeing in a pool. Check out this cool litter
pickup cartoon that ran in the News Sentinel on Earthday Eve. It
nails the problem of littering. Thanks to Hector Cantu and Carlos
Castellanos for addressing this problem in a very straightforward way:
- posted by KKB staff at 8:30 AM
Sunday, April 17, 2005
It sure feels like spring!!! I like dogwoods, but I love
azaleas. This is one of my favorite spots to hang out on spring
afternoons.
- posted by KKB staff at 2:15 PM
Friday, April 15, 2005
It's Tax Day. That has nothing to do with our stake out this
morning in the North Hills area. Tom and Seed spent an hour
looking for those little garbage trucks that go from house to house and
haul loads of trash to a compactor truck. According to City
ordinance and waste hauling company policy, those trucks are supposed to
run with covers over their beds. In reality, they often run
uncovered and litter falls or blows from these trucks just like
privately owned trucks. Tom Salter, KKB's executive director, is
authorized by the County Solid Waste Department to issue litter
citations (and warning tickets). We did not find any garbage
trucks and had to return to the office for other work.
- posted by KKB staff at 8:15 PM
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
The staff at Marble Springs, otherwise known as The John
Sevier Home on John Sevier Highway did a cleanup on John
Sevier Highway near the historic site. The bags of trash and loose
material collected have been taken to the UTK campus to be
included in our ongoing litter analysis.
- posted by KKB staff at 4:45 PM
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Today there was a pretty long article in the News Sentinel
about pending container deposit legislation in Nashville. KKB had
a quote about the impact of the bill on our operations. If passed
the legislation would eliminate a current statewide program that grants
funds to counties and several nonprofits to carry out litter prevention
education and cleanup programs. Readers of this blog may wonder
why organizations that focus on litter aren't leading the charge in
favor of the "bottle bill". Here are just some of
the reasons:
1) Keep Knoxville Beautiful is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit
organization and is required to limit its lobbying (support of
specific legislation or candidates). We can certainly provide
facts about our operations and our issues, but we aren't going to
support or oppose specific bills or candidates. For the record
Keep Knoxville Beautiful and as far as we know, all Keep America
Beautiful affiliates, promote litter prevention (with an emphasis
on proper disposal), waste reduction (including the three
"R's") and community beautification. We also tend to
look at litter as a human behavior problem related to all types of
material littered. We tend not to focus on one category of material
- like bottles or cans.
2) Contrary to what the supporters of the "bottle bill" say,
the bill would NOT solve the litter problem in Tennessee. When
KKB has done individual item analyses of actual litter from actual
cleanups by volunteers we find that "bottle bill" containers
make up from 14% to 34% of the material found. This data is
supported in other studies. It is our
opinion, based on hard data, that the bill would have a minimal impact
on litter and we believe the litter problem would look pretty much the
same as it does now. (See #3 below). When you approach the litter
problem emotionally the bottle bill looks great. When you look
at the facts it doesn't fix litter. This may come as a
shock to some bill supporters, but other states that
have bottle bills still have litter. Their litter typically
contains fewer bottles and cans, but there is still plenty of other
trash to warrant anti-littering awareness campaigns, municipal
(taxpayer) cleanup, volunteer cleanup, enforcement efforts and litter despair.
3) "Bottle bills" are recycling programs that cause,
as a side effect, some reduction in the amount of drink
containers in the litter stream. The container legislation up
for consideration in Nashville is a recycling bill. Most of the
bottles and cans "recovered" by container deposit laws are
already in the waste stream, but they are headed to landfills.
Instead of getting buried, they get recycled. Diverting cans and
bottles from landfills is the
greatest impact of container legislation. The deposit/refund
system captures some of the littered containers, but not all.
Have you heard any stories in the news lately about the recycling
crisis or how low rates of recycling are leading to lower property
values and how a failure to recycle creates a bad first impression of
our community to visitors and new business prospects? Of course
not. Recycling becomes a crisis when landfill costs are very
high - which they aren't here. Recycling also becomes a crisis
if there is unmet demand for plastic, glass and aluminum - with
corresponding high prices paid for the recycled material. (If my
recycling buddies want to take me to the woodshed on this fine, I'll
take my beating). So why not promote the bottle bill as a
recycling bill? Are you kidding? Litter is the emotional
issue you can rally around. If you promote the container
legislation as a recycling program will it make a sound?
4) All this is really about money, something that you can get
very emotional about. The promoters of the bill make an
important assumption about redemption rates. They believe 30% of
the containers will never get returned. Some will be damaged,
some lost, some littered. Most of the "lost" bottles
will just get thrown away in landfills. The deposits left over
from unredeemed bottles will pay for the program. I believe they
are underestimating redemption rates. I believe that market
forces will result in much higher redemption rates leaving little
behind to pay for administrative and other costs. If they have to have
70% to make the program work, what happens if redemption rates hit
80%? I didn't see anything in the legislation that addresses
this issue. This is a huge gamble on the part of an already
financially strapped state. I suppose the industry can control
printing labels and restrict container labels with TN on then to only
be sold in Tennessee, but I can't help remembering when Kramer borrowed Newman's mail truck to haul bottles from New
York City to Michigan to get 10˘ instead of 5˘?
5) Where is the support from the business community? What you
don't hear about is that the wholesale distributors of these
containers must pay either 1˘ or 1.5˘ (depending on sales volume) on
every container into the administrative system to run the
program. This is in addition to the 5˘ to be collected from
consumers. In reality the drinks will cost 6˘ or 6.5˘ more but
the deposit and return will be 5˘.
6) A representative of a nonprofit organization
pushing the current "bottle bill" called me to assure me
that organizations like KKB would receive more grant money than they
already get to work on the litter problem after the bottle bill passes
(and I thought all this time the bottle bill is going to eliminate
litter). After reading the legislation I have no idea what he is
talking about. There is absolutely nothing in the bill to fund
litter prevention education and cleanup and I am skeptical the bill
can pay for its own administration.
The bottom line is this. Don't sell it to me as
a litter bill. Don't tell me the deposits paid by the consumer pay
all the costs of the program. Don't tell me there will be plenty
of money laying around to fund the anti-litter programs that will still
be needed. Just pitch it for what it is - a recycling program that
passes along some costs to the companies that sell the bottles and cans
and relies on an unknown rate of redemption for other income. Pass or fail,
the initiative will be judged for what it is, not what the supporters
think will sell the best with legislators, their constituents and the
media.
Below: A graph of the results of four separate litter cleanups
categorized by typical "bottle bill" items. Contact the
KKB office for detailed information about the study.
- posted by KKB staff at 10:00 AM
