For Kick Butts Day, March 21st, Healthy Communities and Youth RISE! completed a “Billions of Butts” pick-up at the Frankfort TPA park. We spent 30 minutes picking up cigarette butts at several different locations throughout the park like near shelters, playground equipment, and at rest spots. The flags in the pictures represents every place where a cigarette butt was picked up. These are right where kids are playing! The same pick up was done last year at the parks and look how many cigarette butts have collected within the year! Three out of every four smokers litter their butts into the environment. These butts are NOT-biodegradable and can stay in the environment for 20 plus years.
This becomes a danger to the children, families, and wildlife who play and live at the parks. A smoke free air policy is one way to prevent our future generations from tobacco initiation, but it also shows that our community cares about having a clean and safe environment. Cigarette butts are small and hard to see so this activity gives policy makers, community members, and tobacco-users a visual on the amount of cigarette butts put into the environment.
Our community is currently considering a tobacco free policy which could positively affect parks, all restaurants and bars, and any future establishment of such. This is a one large step that we can do to make sure we are offering the healthiest and safest environment for our community members and visitors. If you are interested in speaking to us more about a tobacco free policy or what that would mean for our community, please call Healthy Communities at 765-659-6063 or RSVP to come to our Tobacco Policy Community Conversation at the Frankfort Rotary meeting on April 12 at noon at Arborwood. Shoup’s will provide lunch at this community conversation for $13.
Healthy Communities also partnered with the Mulberry IMPACT Youth Group to do the “Train Up to Kick Butts” activity and the Frankfort SADD group to do a “Cups in a Fence for Kick Butts Day.” Both groups had a high participation and this activity brought awareness not only to the kids in the groups, but also to the community as a whole.