Group readies litter crusade

Area leaders say they're gearing up to take out the trash.

Those involved in the Keep Southeast Missouri Beautiful campaign gathered Monday morning at the Osage Community Centre in Cape Girardeau. A national representative for Keep America Beautiful drove from Chicago to certify Southeast Missouri as an official KAB community.

Keep Southeast Missouri Beautiful is unusual, according to the national organization, because it encompasses three cities (Cape Girardeau, Jackson and Scott City) and a county (Cape Girardeau). Typically, cities alone receive the designation. Keep Southeast Missouri Beautiful will become Missouri's third KAB community along with Hannibal and Kansas City. More than 565 communities participate nationwide.

"Welcome to the family. We can't wait to talk trash and fight dirty with you," KAB director of education and training Sue Smith said to the about 30 people gathered for the event.

Litterbugs shouldn't even think about hurling trash out of the car window when Smith is in town. She carries gloves and a pocket knife on all her trips and is prepared to pounce if she sees a trash bag on the side of the road.

Smith said she doesn't hesitate to cut open the bag and look for identifying information. After that, she calls the offending party, saying she's from the area homeowners' association (a white lie) and asks him or her to retrieve the litter.

"It works sometimes," she said to laughter from the advisory council group gathered after the official ceremony.

It's all part of changing the mindset that makes litter acceptable, she said. Smith hopes to inspire similar anti-litter vigilance from Southeast Missouri's representatives.

The ceremony culminated 11 months of hard work that began in March. Volunteers have reviewed all litter enforcement ordinances in Cape Girardeau County and have conducted a litter index survey to pinpoint the cleanest and most littered spots in the area. They've also organized themselves into four advisory committees responsible for education, media, finance and enforcement.

Representatives from all participating municipalities gave short speeches accepting the KAB title. Alderwoman Barbara Lohr of Jackson drew laughs when she said she hopes the anti-litter campaign will finally scare one habitual litterer she called "the red-cup bandit."

"I'm sure it's a gang," Lohr joked. "They finish their drinks just about the time they get to my daughter's house, and that's when they throw them out."

Cape Girardeau Mayor Jay Knudtson said no amount of cleanup will solve problems like this one. Instead, he said, the city must change its collective mindset.

"We can get an army out there to clean our area up, but unless we can get the 'red cup bandit' to understand that it's unacceptable it doesn't make a difference," he said.

The group has big plans for the near future. Goals for 2007 include targeting already identified "litter hot spots" for cleanup, coordinating an annual event called the "Great American Cleanup" and expanding education and advertising efforts. KSMB has a 2007 budget of just under $10,000, and the group collected about $4,000 in donations last year along with a significant amount of "in kind" donations for items like advertising and office space at the Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce.

The Great American Cleanup kicks off in Los Angeles in March and runs through May. Local officials say they don't have any special events planned but hope to set up a "command center" at the Chamber of Commerce. There, at no charge, local civic groups that want to take part in the cleanup can get trash bags, safety vests and other items necessary for picking up trash.

The command center will track all of Southeast Missouri's activities because the more active a community is, the more KAB grant money it will receive, Smith said.

Tim Arbeiter, Chamber of Commerce vice president for community development, said there are some "hot spots" where regular littering occurs. These should be the first ones targeted for cleanup, said Arbeiter, who is serving as the primary liaison between the national organization and the Southeast Missouri affiliate. They include four in Cape Girardeau County, five in the city of Cape Girardeau, one in Jackson and one in Scott City,

But the effort won't be all about picking up trash. An important step toward making the area cleaner is letting people know you're serious. That includes ordinance enforcement, Smith said.

That may mean unifying some ordinances across the county, it may mean encouraging police to write more tickets or it may even mean developing a hot line where littering can be reported. Violators reported on the hot line would receive a notice in the mail. Not a fine, Smith said, just a notice.

"We call it a 'dear-jerk letter'," Smith said.

tgreaney@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245