KLVB reports in on the litter index

Published 12:29 am Saturday, August 9, 2008

By Aaron Strickland



Tire shards alongside expressway ramps. A dish- washer dumped near railroad tracks. Bottles and cans bobbing in the creek. What type of litter do you see on your way to work each morning?

Keep America Beautiful, Inc. (KAB) is asking its affiliate communities across the country to take a serious look at their particular litter situation using its new KAB Litter Index. According to a 2000 Yankelovich study, almost half of all Americans (48 percent) admit to having littered in the past 10 years — and it shows on many of our streets, parks, neighborhoods, and work sites. Given this unsightly and sometimes hazardous situation, KAB set out to create the Litter Index as a way for communities to measure litter from year to year, address their problems, and measure their progress.

The tool uses a simple four-point scale (ranging from 1— no litter, to 4 — extremely littered), and was tested for statistical validity and refined in six field test sites throughout the USA. The KAB Litter Index was designed to be applicable in rural or urban areas of any population size. Each year, participants are asked to grade their communities during a drive-by examination of the same areas at the same time of the year, to assess if the area is more or less littered, which will give an indication of the success of anti-littering education, or work yet to be done.

Keep Lowndes/Valdosta Beautiful conducted its own Litter Index on July 14 and 15 and Valdosta and Lowndes County rated a score of 1.8 (1— no litter, 2— slightly littered, 3 — littered, 4 — extremely littered). Last year’s score was 2.0. The most littered areas were rural roads and lower income neighborhoods, and the least littered places were residential neighborhoods, office parks, and other maintained areas.

The Keep Lowndes/Valdosta Beautiful participants who conducted this KAB Litter Index were KLVB Chairman, Dr. Carl Hand, KLVB Green Team member and Azalea City Woman’s Club President, Jeanette Coody, and KLVB Executive Director, H. Aaron Strickland.

The Litter Index is a great tool. Although this year’s score is a 1.8, keep in mind that this survey is only an average, and some areas are definitely worse than others. Overall, Valdosta and Lowndes County are slightly littered. Some areas that we viewed on the survey were impeccable, and others definitely need more help and attention. The Litter Index shows us where our focus needs to be.

In 1998, Keep America Beautiful retained Dr. J. Winston Porter, president of the Waste Policy Center in Leesburg, Va., and former U.S. EPA assistant administrator, to serve as manager of this litter measurement tool development project. Dr. Porter, along with a team of experts reviewed and researched existing state, national, and international litter measurement tools. The result of this process was the creation of the KAB Litter Index.

Keep America Beautiful is a nonprofit organization whose network of 500 local, statewide, and international programs educate individuals about litter prevention and ways to reduce, reuse, recycle, and properly manage waste materials. Through partnerships and strategic alliances with citizens, businesses, and government, KAB’s programs motivate millions of volunteers annually to clean up, beautify, and improve their neighborhoods, creating safer and more livable community environments.

H. Aaron Strickland is the executive director of Keep Lowndes/Valdosta Beautiful. For more information or to volunteer call (229) 671-2499.