Massachusetts Beautification Bulletin | December 2024
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As the clock ticks down toward New Year's Day, we'd like to wish you and your family a happy, healthy, and litter-free new year! Scroll down for a brief recap of 2024 achievements, as well as other news and event updates.
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Cheers to a Beautiful 2024 and Looking Ahead to More Progress in 2025!
As we look ahead to the start of a new year, we’d like to thank the amazing volunteers and business partners who helped make Massachusetts a cleaner, greener place to live, work and play in 2024. This includes:
Our Volunteers: Thank you to everyone who volunteered to clean up or green up their community in 2024! This year, nearly 10,000 volunteers from our local KMB chapters, Massachusetts businesses and other organizations removed 120+ tons of litter from the Massachusetts landscape. A special shout-out goes to the 1,200+ people who regularly clean up their adopted routes as part of the Massachusetts Litter Cleanup Crew.
Our Chapter Leaders: Our volunteers wouldn’t be able to do what they do without the guidance of the people who lead our 40 local KMB chapters. Thank you to these inspiring leaders who donate so much of their time and energy to improve their communities. Much of what we seek to accomplish boils down to having a sense of community pride—and these leaders exemplify that spirit!
Our Business Sponsors: Whether it’s our annual Plant Something Bee-eautiful grants, our Next-Gen Environmental Leader Scholarship, or our Great Massachusetts Cleanup program, the common denominator is that these programs all require funding. Therefore, we want to give a special shoutout to the companies and individuals who donate money and materials to support our mission every year. Follow this link to see who supported our mission in 2024.
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Tying a Bow on a Beautiful 2024!
Great Massachusetts Cleanup:
- 170 cleanup events
- 9,635 volunteers engaged
- 120+ tons of litter and debris removed
Business Community Service Cleanups:
- 23 cleanup events
- 503 business volunteers
- 11,590 pounds of litter and debris removed
Communications, Education and Outreach:
- 58,941 unique website visitors
- 26,922 Facebook followers
- 14 Plant Something Bee-eautiful grants totaling $10,000 awarded
- One $2,500 Next-Gen Environmental Leader Scholarship awarded
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Help Us Thrive in 2025
It’s not too late to make a tax-deductible 2024 donation to KMB.
As an alternative to a one-time donation, please consider a modest monthly sustaining donation to help fund our ongoing efforts to raise awareness, change behaviors, clean up our state, and make Massachusetts a place we can all take more pride in.
With your monthly support, we can continue our mission of taking action to make Massachusetts a cleaner, greener place to live, work, and play!
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Quotable: “The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it.”
— Sir David Attenborough
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Massachusetts Clean Community Awards Tickets Now Available!
We’ll be gathering at the Village Hall in Framingham on May 15, 2025, to celebrate our 2024 Clean Community Awards honorees. Tickets are on sale now!
This event will be a fun evening of celebration featuring inspiring stories, delicious food, cocktails, and entertainment.
Nominations for the Massachusetts Clean Community Awards are being accepted through January 31, 2025. Awards will be presented in the following categories:
- Environmental Legislator of the Year
- KMB Business Partner of the Year
- KMB Chapter Leader of the Year
- KMB Litter Buster of the Year
- KMB Youth Volunteer of the Year
- KMB Municipal Partner of the Year
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Zero Waste Zone:What to Do With Holiday Gift Packaging
Americans trash an estimated 2.3 million pounds of wrapping paper each year and over 38 million miles of ribbon.
If holiday-themed wrapping paper is not essential to your holiday happiness, consider using paper bags that you may already have in your house for wrapping paper. Then, once all the gifts have been opened, see if you can save and reuse your packaging materials. Gift bags, bows, and tissue paper can be reused for years.
For anything that can no longer be reused, here’s what you need to know:
- Gift bags can go in the recycling bin, as long as there is no metallic ink, foil, or glitter on them (remove string handles first)
- Tissue paper, ribbon, wrapping paper, and bows that are no longer reusable should go in the fireplace or the trash, as they are not recyclable
- Greeting cards and their envelopes are recyclable unless there is metallic ink, foil, or glitter on them
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From The KMB Blog:How Picking Up Litter Almost Became an Olympic Event
The centuries-long saga of volunteer trash-gathering has many fascinating chapters, but none can equal the episode in which it nearly became an official sport at the 1968 Olympics. In this satirical post, guest blogger Mike Morris provides some humor and levity to the litter-picker-uppers among us.
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Enviro-Newsworthy Developments...
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Thank you for reading our newsletter and please contact me if I can answer any questions you may have about our programs, launching a local KMB chapter in your community, or sponsorship opportunities. In the meantime, Happy New Year!
Sincerely,
Neil Rhein, Founder & Executive Director
Keep Massachusetts Beautiful
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