From the Columbus Dispatch, Sunday September 25, 2011

Gritty Parsons Avenue is home to small businesses, restaurants and bars, many of whose owners are working to clean up the South Side neighborhood.
One constant they face is cigarette butts scattered along sidewalks and curbs.

Jeff Knoll, director of the Parsons Avenue Merchants Association, said that one day he stood in front of the United Methodist Church for All People at Parsons and Whittier Street and counted 40 cigarette butts.

“It’s just unsightly,” said Knoll, who runs Graphic Touch at 827 S. Parsons Ave., just north of Columbus Street.
“If I walk up to my shop after a rainstorm, the cigarette butts thrown in the street have all washed up on my sidewalk. I can pick up 10 to 20 cigarette buts.”

He might not have to if smokers use the 10 cigarette-litter containers being placed along Parsons from Columbus Street south to Siebert Street.
The yearlong pilot program, which begins on Monday, is aimed at discouraging smokers from flicking their butts into the street or onto sidewalks.

The community-improvement organization Keep America Beautiful has tested similar programs in other communities, said Sherri Palmer, who manages Keep Columbus Beautiful, a city agency. The result is a 55 percent reduction in cigarette litter.

“They want you to change your behavior,” Palmer said.
InnovaGreen Systems of Dublin will install the containers, each made with 10,000 to 20,000 recycled cigarette butts.

The Parsons Avenue Merchants Association and Keep Columbus Beautiful applied for and received a $3,000 cigarette-litter prevention grant from Keep America Beautiful to pay for the containers.

Knoll said posters will be placed along the street to increase awareness.
“I don’t think people that smoke realize it’s litter,” said Marc Borst, who runs the Mad Hatter screen-printing shop on Parsons.

He said that if people see cigarette butts, they might dump their pop cans and other trash in the area.
If the program is successful, Keep Columbus Beautiful could start similar efforts in other neighborhoods, Palmer said.

Blake Burich of InnovaGreen Systems said he’s already heard from neighborhoods interested in the 3-foot-tall containers.
Also on Monday, 100 volunteers from Altria, parent company of cigarette-maker Philip Morris USA, will clean up Parsons between Livingston Avenue and Hosack Street.

The beautification campaign is the second for Parsons since 2010, when community leaders and volunteers in the Plant Pride on Parsons effort cleaned up 2 miles along the street and placed 32 painted planters on Parsons’ sidewalks.

Last week, area resident Kim Williams was smoking in drizzling rain along Parsons.
Williams usually throws cigarette butts into the street, she said, but would use the new receptacles.

Palmer said 24 galvanized buckets filled with sand or other material will be placed in business entryways along other sections of Parsons, so smokers can discard butts before entering stores.
Schreiner Ace Hardware already has two outside its door at 1665 Parsons Ave.
“If we didn’t have a pail,” assistant manager Nick Guerry said, “there’d be a pile in the corner.”

mferenchik@dispatch.com

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