Litter Prevention Program
Phone: (416) 321-0633
  • Home
    • 2014 Annual Report
    • This Week in 'Litterland' >
      • Current Edition
      • Past Issues by Date
    • Guide
  • Media
    • Sheila's Shlog >
      • Dear Diary
    • About >
      • Press Release
      • Program Brochure >
        • Program Details
      • What People Say >
        • Visitor Feedback
  • Get Involved
    • Partnerships
    • Help Us >
      • Our Friends
    • Heroes
  • News Reel
    • Feb 2023
    • Jan 2023 >
      • Dec 2022
      • Nov 2022 >
        • Oct 2022
        • Sep 2022 >
          • Aug 2022
          • Jul 2022
          • Jun 2022
          • May 2022
          • Apr 2022 >
            • Mar 2022
            • Feb 2022
            • Jan 2022
            • Dec. 2021
            • Nov. 2021 >
              • Oct. 2021
              • Sep. 2021
              • Aug. 2021
              • Jul. 2021
              • Jun. 2021
              • May 2021
              • Apr. 2021 >
                • Mar. 2021
                • Feb. 2021
                • Jan. 2021
                • Dec. 2020 >
                  • Nov. 2020
                  • Oct. 2020
                  • Sep. 2020
                  • Aug. 2020
                  • Jul. 2020
                  • Jun. 2020 >
                    • May 2020
                    • Apr. 2020
                    • Mar. 2020
                    • Feb. 2020
                    • Jan. 2020 >
                      • Dec. 2019
                      • Nov. 2019
                      • Oct. 2019
                      • Sep. 2019
                      • Aug. 2019
                      • Jul. 2019
                      • Jun. 2019
                      • May 2019
                      • Apr. 2019
                      • Mar. 2019 >
                        • Feb. 2019
                        • Jan. 2019
                        • Dec. 2018
                        • Nov. 2018
                        • Oct. 2018
                        • Sep. 2018 >
                          • Aug. 2018
                          • Jul. 2018
                          • Jun. 2018
                          • May 2018
                          • Apr. 2018
                          • Mar. 2018
                          • Feb. 2018
                          • Jan. 2018
  • Photo Gallery
    • Video
    • Library
    • Butts and More Butts
    • Clean Up Days
    • Coffee Cups
    • Litter Photos
    • Poster
  • Prevent Litter
    • You Vote
    • Opinion Poll
    • Causes
    • Solutions
    • Benefits
    • Tips >
      • For Business
    • Tobacco litter >
      • Fact Sheet
      • Letter to Imperial Tobacco
    • Resources >
      • Marine Litter
      • Plastics
    • Why Prevent Litter?
    • Toronto
  • Contact
    • Corporate Brochures
    • WORDS Media & Communications Inc.

Ghana has a lot to learn from this man

4/22/2015

4 Comments

 
Tweet
Oceans can’t separate those who share the goal of a cleaner planet.

From Canada to all other parts of the world the men and women who stand against littering are like-minded tributaries, all feeding the same inspirational source.  Each for their own reasons has been driven to care about this environmental issue.  I am amazed at how the cause connects us no matter where we live.
Picture
If not for the Internet I probably would not know Elijah Mensah, a remarkable young man from Ghana, who found me online and sought me out for ideas and advice.  He is the driver behind Help Change Ghana and the Youth Litter Prevention Program that is trying to propel a massive cultural shift across the African nation. It is slow going, one person at a time.  But Mensah, at 29, has managed to pull together an indefatigable team of young people and $5,000 of his own money to start to put a stop to littering in a country steeped in it.

“In building a greater understanding on the need to keep away from filth and maintain a healthy environment, Help Change Ghana - a non-profit organization dedicated to the development, expansion and promotion of environmental sanitation through composting, reduction, reusing and recycling of waste - organized a two-day Youth Litter Prevention Campaign dubbed “Stop the drop, because you can,” Elijah tells me when we speak via Skype.

I ask him to send me a synopsis so I can chronicle what he's doing. 

“Our campaign commenced with field education in three tertiary institutions on some harmful effects of littering,” Mensah writes. “A rousing symposium was held on the second day at the University of Ghana Business School.  Close to 150 participated from the university community and heard keynote speakers from the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, the EPA, Local Government and rural development and the Zoomlion Waste Management Limited.  

“The participants took a pledge to stop littering and protect the environment. There were opinion polls, which many supported, saying the city authorities should sanction and fine litterers.

“Help Change Ghana is working to petition city authorities to make sure the law against littering is duly adhered to, so as to, not only prevent situations like epidemics, but floods especially.”

He tells me that while littering is a criminal offense punishable by law with provisions for fines and prosecutions, he estimates “90 per cent” of Ghanaians litter, and that throwing litter from a moving vehicle is perhaps the most common sin.

Litter choking drains is a major cause of flooding in Ghana. Help Change Ghana grapples with a problem common to the world, and is determined to convert litterers to non-litterers one citizen at a time.
While we are, literally, oceans apart, Elijah and I ride the same wave.
4 Comments

Butt Blitz May 2 A Canadian First

4/17/2015

1 Comment

 
Tweet
Here's a litter-related news scoop: Butt Blitz, a day when Canada gets its butts up off the ground.

On Saturday, May 2 Canadians are being called upon to pick up littered cigarette butts in a first-time, national drive to retrieve high volumes of the country’s most littered item. Coordinators coast-to-coast are signing up to receive and tally butts before sending them all to be recycled.  Find out more and register as a coordinator or collector at www.agreenerfuture.ca.

Butt Blitz is a partnership involving A Greener Future, Envirocana Inc. and TerraCycle Canada – an inaugural  Canada-wide effort to stub out what is unquestionably the most toxic form of small litter, the virtually indestructible plastic filter of a cigarette.

Sixty-five per cent of smokers are likely to litter cigarette butts rather than adopt a responsible smoking and disposal plan every time they smoke.  Somehow, from lack of instruction and lack of communication, flicking butts came to be a routine method of disposal, part of a beginning smoker’s learning to smoke ritual, part of the “experience” he or she carries through their smoking lives.

Vancouver Aquarium Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup has offered up promotion for the event.  Butt Blitz is tailor made for public participation, in fact, relies on it. 

The collection day is a wonderful start to raising awareness and gaining community cooperation for strategies that stand not only to reduce butt litter, but reprogram the behavior of butt litterers, those people we know as smokers.

It’s time for the anti-cigarette butt people - and that 35 per cent group of non-littering smokers - to stand up and be counted.  May 2 would be a good day to start.
1 Comment

    Author

    Creative communications consultant Sheila White is founder of the Litter Prevention Program, and prior worked as a communications ace and PR strategist for some of Ontario's top political names.

    Archives

    September 2021
    May 2021
    July 2020
    January 2020
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    October 2017
    March 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012

    Categories

    All
    Advertising
    Art
    Canada Post
    Education
    Entertainment
    Environment
    Litter
    Litter Prevention
    Psychology
    Recycling
    Religion
    Rob Ford
    Tobacco Litter
    Toronto
    Waste Management

    RSS Feed