Don’t be a litter bug!

Discarding that fast food wrapper in the street may seem harmless in the moment, but multiply that by 330 million people in the U.S. alone, and we would literally be buried in trash. You might think it’s someone else’s responsibility to clean it up, but guess what, it’s your responsibility not to litter in the first place.

Litter cleanup costs the U.S. almost $11.5 billion each year according to Keep America Beautiful with businesses paying $9.1 billion and government, schools, and other organizations picking up the remainder. And, the reality is, litter devalues communities almost instantly.

93% Of homeowners say a littered neighborhood would decrease their assessment of a home’s value and influences their decision to purchase a property. And 40% estimated that litter would reduce a home’s value by 10% to 24%.

The worst part is that the majority of litter ends up in the ocean. In fact, the numbers are mind blowing—according to National Geographic, “there are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the ocean. Of that mass, 269,000 tons float on the surface, while some four billion plastic microfibers per square kilometer litter the deep sea.” So, how does this affect you? While we know how large pieces of trash negatively impact marine life and birds, it’s the harm that microscopic particles, the plastic toxins that are ingested by marine life and ultimately by us, that worries healthcare experts.

The reality is, about 85% of littering is the result of individual attitudes, and often done by 18-34 year olds. Behavior needs to change. While straws are getting a lot of attention lately, they are not the worst culprate. Cigarette butts, paper, food & candy wrappers, and napkins/tissues top the list. If you smoke, the earth is not your trash can. “The Ocean Conservancy collected more than 2.4 million cigarette butts with plastic filters along the world’s beaches and waterways—enough cigarette butts to line the distance of five marathons.”

So, what can we do? We all bear responsibility and it starts with setting an example. Making sure our garbage bins are secured and covered, keeping a trash bin in your car, cleaning up litter in front of your house, organizing neighborhood clean-up efforts, using reusable bags instead of plastic, cleaning up after your pet, and even planting flowers at the curbside all help curb litter and make our communities safer, healthier and more beautiful!