Cigarette litter prevention study ends

As reported in The Sentinel Record, Lake Ouachita was the focus of the largest Keep America Beautiful (KAB) Cigarette Litter Prevention Study this year. This massive undertaking, involving 40 test sites, has been made possible by a grant from Philip Morris USA, an Altria company, with additional support from RAI Services Company. The study, developed by the Hot Springs/Garland County Beautification Commission and the Corps of Engineers, involved selecting each of the sites to either receive full intervention measures, or to receive no intervention and function as a placebo site.

The study compared the effect of a significant intervention that included signage, free pocket and boat/car ashtrays, personal interaction with staff, and brochures against an equal number of sites that had no intervention at all. A fascinating development that skewed the data was that after meeting with staff, seeing the new signage, and reading the brochures, many people spontaneously began to clean up whole areas, campsites, boat ramps, etc. The volunteers were not encouraged directly in any way, but were obviously not discouraged, either. The final figure for the intervention sites was a reduction in cigarette litter of 96%, remembering that many of the sites received volunteer clean ups. The non-intervention sites saw an increase in cigarette litter of 54%, even though several of these sites received volunteer clean ups, also.

All the sites were also evaluated for general litter using the KAB Litter Index system. Although most of the sites scored well to begin with, there was still a significant reduction of 38% in overall litter at the intervention sites. This compares with a slight reduction at the non-intervention sites of 14%, once again due to the volunteer actions. The 38% reduction in litter also fits well with anecdotal evidence supplied by Tad Cooper, the General Manager of Echo Canyon Resort & Marina. He stated, “This effort was successful in reducing not only cigarette butts and ashes, but all types of litter. It seems that drawing attention to the cigarette litter issue caused our visitors to take note of all their littering habits and act accordingly. In fact, I have estimated that all types of litter, both in our marina and parking areas, have dropped by at least 40% since the start of the program! Thank you for your efforts in this regard.”