What is the Museum of Litter?
It’s a virtual museum dedicated to the elimination and prevention of litter. We ARTiculate the problem of litter with humor, art and kindness. Kind of like Greenpeace meets the Dalai Lama and George Carlin. Please visit our GIFT SHOP to see art made from litter, even, (especially) cigarette butts -- the number one littered item on the planet.
Our Mission:
Litter-prevention….in our lifetime…and we’re getting up there!
Our Goal:
To go out of business because there’s no more litter.
The Problem:
There are many problems on the planet -- but litter doesn’t have to be one of them. It’s easily solvable. First we need to all get on the same page: we need to acknowledge it’s a problem.
It’s expensive. It decreases property values and affects tourism. The U.S. spends an estimated $11.5 billion each year on litter cleanup, according to Keep America Beautiful. That’s money that could be used for good in our communities.
It's a health hazard for humanity and a death sentence for birds, turtles and fish. A man had to have his toe amputated after stepping on broken glass on a south Florida beach. The birds and sea creatures fare worse. They mistake plastic floating in the ocean for food, eat it, feed it to their young, are unable to digest it and then die.
If there’s litter around, it is because we *allow*’ littering. If litter laws were taken seriously and a litterer slapped with a hefty fine, we’d have a clean environment in no time (as well as money in the city coffers).
What we do:
The Museum of Litter applauds the many individuals, organizations and communities involved in environmental litter-pickups, yet believe the key is education stressing the importance of preventing litter in the first place. With that said, we do pick up litter, but more important, we aim to create conversations about it. We discuss what litter is. Some people think certain things, like a cigarette butt, isn’t litter. We aim to educate by engaging and entertaining, using social media.
How we do it.
Although we pick up litter, our purpose and passion is to create conscious awareness about litter and the importance of preventing it in the first place. One of the ways we do this is by making art from the litter as a way to make a statement. You can see this litter-art in our GIFT SHOP . Art sales fund litter prevention awareness, education and events. We try to find ways to educate with humor and kindness so the litterer remains open to hear the message. Each original piece of art comes with a Certificate of Authenticity that states when and where the art was picked up, by whom and who made the art.
When we pick up litter, we document it with photos, blog commentary, and tweets, rather than just throwing it away, so it’s not “out of sight, out of mind.” We blog, tweet, give talks, create art upcycled from litter, do art shows and hold community events to promote awareness of the importance of zero litter.
Primarily we pick up litter at the shore. As all litter eventually makes its way into our waterways and ocean, we believe it’s imperative to pick up litter before it reaches the ocean. As litter floats in from the sea with each new tide, we are able to retrieve it before it floats out again joining the “plastic soup” known as the Atlantic Garbage Patch or Pacific Garbage Patch.
If litter is one of your pet peeves,
join us in the conversation of ARTiculating litter.
*LIKE* us on Facebook. View our videos on YouTube . Follow us on Twitter . We can #TwitterLitterAway. Together we can create a clean, green world. You can contact me at Sharon@MuseumofLitter.org.
