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Press Release Headlines
5/25/2001
No Holiday for Trash
Arizona Clean and Beautiful
PHOENIX, May 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Beverage cans, cigarette butts, glass
bottles, paper and plastic again led the disgraceful "2000 Dirty Dozen"
litter survey by the Center for Marine Conservation. The bright spots: cigarette
butts didn't lead the list this year, and were down by nearly 5% as well.
Beverage cans took the top spot in the 2000 dirty Dozen listing, reaching
nearly 23% of all litter collected. Arizona is doing far worse than the
national total of beverage cans, with 23% contrasted vs. the national figure
of under 4%.
The results are compiled as part of the International Coastal Cleanup
where volunteers record what they find along the shorelines of lakes, rivers
and washes. "Litter is much too serious to be dismissed as casual
sloppiness, and more than just an aesthetic issue," according to Leandra Lewis,
Executive Director of Arizona Clean and Beautiful.
Cigarette butts start fires -- 100 in the past ten years, and upcoming
is a dry year in the forests -- kill wildlife, and get washed into street
drains, ending up in Arizona waterways. "Contrast that with the simple act of using
an ashtray," Lewis said. "The situation is even worse now that virtually
all cigarettes have almost indestructible filter tips," she added.
The annual cleanup produced some surprises. Lake Havasu City on the
Colorado River collected 250 bags of litter with 138 people covering 14
miles.
The take was 1,500 pounds. No surprise there: visitors overrun Havasu
during Spring Break and holiday weekends. But 100 Gila Bend volunteers covered
only five miles and gathered 350 bags totaling 1,750 pounds.
Litter cannot be taken lightly. Arizona Game and Fish reports that baby
eagles are lost to discarded tangles of monofilament fishing lines. Deer
are euthanized because their digestive systems are impacted with straws,
cigarette butts and plastics. Balloons are eaten. And every piece of litter came
from a person.
This is the fifth year that Arizona Clean & Beautiful and its affiliate
network have participated in the annual cleanup and survey with the Arizona
Shorelines program. The state results are compared with the national
results on one table below, and a county-by-county summary is on a second table.
Arizona Clean & Beautiful is a nonprofit organization that helps
implement cleanup, litter prevention and beautification programs throughout Arizona
through its statewide Affiliate Network. It also promotes the
Adopt-A-Highway
program for the Arizona Department of Transportation, and implemented the
first litter-free Super Bowl in 1996.
The Affiliate Network has 23 community-based organizations in both urban
and rural areas, ranging from Flagstaff to Tucson, Yuma to Holbrook, the
Navajo Nation and metropolitan Phoenix.
ARIZONA CLEAN & BEAUTIFUL/
CENTER FOR MARINE CONSERVATION
The 2000 "Dirty Dozen" Litter Survey
AZ '00 US '00
Beverage Cans 22.97% 3.63%
Cigarette butts 10.28% 20.25%
Glass beverage bottles 9.67% 3.90%
Paper Pieces 5.10% 4.32%
Plastic food bags/wrappers 3.25% 5.60%
Plastic caps/lids 3.16% 5.03%
Plastic beverage bottles 3.14% 2.96%
Glass pieces 2.87% 4.13%
Metal bottle caps 2.62% 2.57%
Foamed plastic cups 2.34% 2.12%
Plastic pieces 2.18% 6.65%
Paper bags 2.11% Not on national list
Percentages do not add up to 100% because only the top 12 categories of
items collected as a percentage of all debris are listed. Other trash
collected in Arizona includes plastic bags, plastic utensils, straws and
paper items.
2000 International Coastal Cleanup
Estimate of People, Pounds, Miles
Arizona
APACHE COUNTY
Sanders Sanders Bridge
----------------------------------
15 people 2 - 3 miles 36 bags 200 pounds
COCONINO COUNTY
Flagstaff Lake Mary and Rio de Flag
---------------------------------------------
120 people 5 miles 900 bags
SEDONA Oak Creek Canyon
------------------------------------
12 people 5 miles 15 bags 160 pounds
MARICOPA COUNTY
Peoria Lake Pleasant
---------------------------------
58 people 5 miles 50 bags 500 pounds
12 eagles soared in the sky above
Apache Junction Canyon Lake
-------------------------------
20 people 2 miles 15 bags 120 pounds
Gila Bend Local washes
--------------------------------
100 people 5 miles 350 bags 1,750 pounds
MOHAVE COUNTY
Lake Havasu City Colorado River
----------------------------------
138 people 14 miles 250 bags 1,500 pounds
NAVAJO COUNTY
Holbrook Little Colorado River
--------------------------------------
5 people 1 miles 60 bags 400 pounds
Whiteriver Diamond Creek
------------------------------
84 people 2.5 miles 126 bags 630 pounds
Kearny
-----------------------
80 people 1 mile 70 bags 40 tons
More than 400 tires removed, and other debris. Heavy rain the next
day would have washed the trash down the washes and eventually into
the ocean.
PINAL COUNTY
Casa Grande Canyon Lake
----------------------------
7 people 2 miles 38 bags 30 pounds
(plus 25 underwater divers 5 miles)
17 of the bags were recyclable materials and were taken to recycling
facility.
YUMA COUNTY
Yuma Colorado River
-------------------------------
124 people 2 miles 60 bags 300 pounds
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