Long Beach Green Businesses are offering special deals to people who clean up trash and tag them in photos of whatever they picked up on Instagram.
The new #LitterFreeLB challenge was launched by the Long Beach Office of Sustainability and a local 8th grader, identified as Doranelly, to inspire residents to pick up litter in their communities.
“I want our city to have a nice, clean environment but litter is a big problem here,” Doranelly said in a YouTube video uploaded by the organization Grades of Green. “It’s everywhere, in the streets, parks, and the ocean. It causes air pollution and climate change, hurts animals and contaminates our soil and water.”
An August 2013 report by the Natural Resources Defense Council found that Long Beach spends an average $28 per capita and $12, 972,007 a year “to combat and cleanup litter, and to keep it from ending up in the state’s rivers, lakes, canals and ocean.”
According to the City website, over 147 tons of trash and litter are collected each year by volunteers.
The challenge also serves as a competition for the Long Beach Green Businesses, with the business tagged in the most posts declared the winner at the end of the month, on April 27.
The #LitterFreeLB Challenge asks people to pick up litter, and then post a photo of the trash they collected on Instagram with the hashtag, while also tagging their favorite participating Long Beach Green Business, as well as the Instagram accounts for the Long Beach Office of Sustainability, @LBSustainablity, and Grades of Green, @GradesofGreen.
According to the Office of Sustainability’s website, the following Long Beach Green Businesses offer special deals if customers tag them in a #LitterFreeLB post:
- Aguas Way — @aguasway on Instagram: $1 off Agua for participants
- Berlin Bistro — @berlinbistrolb on Instagram: Free small coffee for all participants
- Burke Mercantile — @burkemercantile on Instagram: 15% off for participants
- Bring Your Own (BYO) Long Beach — @bringyourownlongbeach on Instagram: 10% off for participants
- Feel Good Salsa — @feelgoodsalsa on Instagram: $2 off for participants
- Long Beach Creamery — @longbeachcreamery on Instagram: Two scoops for the price of one for participants
- Portfolio Coffee House — @portfoliocoffeehouse on Instagram: Free small coffee for all participants
According to The California Green Business Network’s website, Green Business Certification is awarded to certain businesses that strive to be environmentally conscious through energy and water conservation, pollution prevention, waste management, employee commute and community education.
Businesses tagged in #LitterFreeLB photos so far include Berlin Bistro, the Long Beach Creamery, Portfolio Coffee House and BYO Long Beach. The trash hauls photographed show a wide variety of litter such as fast food packaging, plastic cups and straws, chip bags, bottles, receipts, other paper products and much more.
In one #LitterFreeLB post, Cathy Procopio of Grades of Green stands pointing at two plastic bags filled with trash that she’s holding in her other hand.
“Saturday Morning Litter Pick-up for Doranelly’s #LitterFreeLB Challenge,” Procopio’s caption reads, “Today I picked up for Portfolio Coffee House! The best cup of Jo in Retro Row!”
The challenge runs from April 1 to April 25. Those without Instagram accounts can still participate and support their favorite Long Beach Green Business by emailing the name of their chosen business and a photo of litter they collected to sustainability@longbeach.gov.
“I don’t want Long Beach kids to grow up in a world with more plastic in the ocean than fish,” Doranelley said in her video. “Together we can make Long Beach litter free.”