Oxford, NC, July 21, 2017- Granville County has completed installation of cigarette litter receptacles that were funded by a $5000 grant from the Keep America Beautiful Cigarette Litter Prevention Program (CLPP). The CLPP stipulates that a portion of the grant funds were to be spent on the receptacles and a portion of the funds were to be spent on messaging. The receptacles include messaging that encourages passersby to “Keep Granville County Beautiful” and thanks users for “being a part of the solution.” Each receptacle should hold approximately 700 cigarette ends.

Receptacles were placed in problem areas and transition areas with a focus on government buildings, downtown areas, and parks. The receptacles can be found by the Bullock Post Office, the Stem Town Hall, Lake Rogers in Creedmoor, the Granville Athletic Park, Wilton Slopes, the Granville County Animal Shelter, the Granville County Courthouse, the Granville County Administrative Complex and Detention Center, and other areas in downtown Oxford. Over 2100 cigarette ends were counted and collected in the immediate area around the placement of the receptacles during an initial scan. The grant also provided pocket ash trays and cup holder ashtrays which were given out at the Granville County Administrative Building.

Granville County Government is one of 37 organizations to receive grant funding for 2017, totaling $297,500, through the 2017 Cigarette Litter Prevention Program. The Cigarette Litter Prevention Program, now in its 15th year, is the nation’s largest program aimed at reducing cigarette litter. Communities that implemented the Cigarette Litter Prevention Program in 2016 realized an average 60 percent reduction in cigarette litter, an 8 percent increase over the 2015 results.

Tobacco products, consisting mainly of cigarette butts, are the most littered item in America, representing nearly 38 percent of all items littered, according to “Litter in America,” Keep America Beautiful’s landmark study of litter and littering behavior. Research has shown that even self-reported “non-litterers” often don’t consider tossing cigarette butts on the ground to be “littering.”  Keep America Beautiful has found that cigarette butt litter occurs most often at transition points—areas where a person must stop smoking before proceeding into another area.  These include bus stops, entrances to stores and public buildings, and the sidewalk areas outside of bars and restaurants, among others.

Granville County Grants Coordinator, Charla Duncan, and Granville County Environmental Services Director, Jason Falls, would like to thank David Cottrell and the City of Oxford for their cooperation in this effort, as well as officials in Bullock, Creedmoor, and Stem. Also involved in the effort was the Granville County General Services Department, who fabricated and installed special posts for receptacles, as well as the Granville County Addressing Department who installed “no littering” signage at county parks to accompany the new receptacles.