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You can start in the next ten minutes

No event to find, no group to join, no form to fill in. The country's litter figure fell by a third on the back of millions of individual decisions — most of them made by someone who simply picked something up.

Ordered by how fast you can start

Two Keep Hattiesburg Beautiful volunteers in hi-vis vests and sunglasses stand arm in arm at a playground, leaning on rakes, with children playing on the climbing frame behind them.

Pick something up

Outside your own front door, on the walk you already take. Nothing to sign, nobody to tell. This is the whole of it.

Get the free toolkit

Litter picker, gloves, liners, a scale and a reflective vest, posted to registered volunteers while supplies last. Useful if you plan to keep going.

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About fifteen high-school students in grey Keep Conyers-Rockdale Beautiful t-shirts stand and kneel together on a sunlit school lawn behind two full black rubbish bags.

Find who to call

When you want to do something bigger than a bag, your local affiliate is the person who already knows what the neighborhood needs.

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Ways to act on your own

Plogging 101: A Workout That Cleans the Planet

June 3, 2025 · McCall Vrydaghs

Turn the simple act of jogging into a chance to clean up your community. Learn how to start plogging safely and make every run count.

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10 Tips to Recycle More Every Day

May 6, 2020 · McCall Vrydaghs

Recycling saves resources, reduces GHG emissions, saves energy, supports a circular economy, and creates jobs. At Keep America Beautiful®, one of our primary goals is to improve recycling. Here are 10 ways you can improve your recycling behavior to help increase our recycling rate. Always check your local recycling regulations to ensure your community accepts certain items before placing them into a recycling bin. DID YOU KNOW… Half is better than none. Only the non-greasy parts of your pizza box are recyclable. If the bottom half is too cheesy to be salvaged, tear oﬀ the top (as long as it’s grease-free) and recycle it. You bet your bottle tops . . . you can recycle them. The caps on your plastic bottles are recyclable, too. Empty your bottle, screw the cap back on, and place it in your recycling bin. Plastic bag and ﬁlm recycling: More than grocery bags. Along with plastic film grocery bags, recycle the bags from your dry cleaning, bread, and newspaper. Remember to take clean, dry bags to recycling centers or retailers with plastic bag recycling bins; do not place them in your curbside or apartment building recycling bins. Plastic bags and film that are placed […]

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KAB Volunteers By The Numbers

Last year alone, over 400,000 hard-working volunteers logged more than 2.9 Million volunteer hours over the course of over 64,000 events. What did our combined service to our communities accomplish?

69,689,184 POUNDS

Of litter, debris, and recycling collected

146,647 acres

Cleaned of litter

59,874 MILES

Of streets, roads, and highways cleaned and beautified

7,461 MILES

Of rivers, lakes, wetlands and shores cleaned

31,899 TREES

Planted, helping to restore communities

America Recycles Day® (ARD)

What can one person do? You can make a BIG difference when you recycle! America Recycles Day, a Keep America Beautiful national initiative, is the only nationally-recognized day dedicated to promoting and celebrating recycling in the United States. We’re proud to share tips on how to be more mindful of what we consume, plus resources on where and how to properly recycle. Join us in recycling right!

Take the #BeRecycled pledge today

Recycling Facts

Four-photo grid: white recycling drop-off containers on tarmac by a lake; a boy carrying a flattened box of bottles past overflowing bins; a woman in a red hoodie and sunglasses beside a school skip full of bagged plastics; and a row of white recycling containers on a drive.

RETREET®

Trees are essential to human life. They provide oxygen, food, shelter, medicine, and tools. Trees also increase property values, promote health and well-being, conserve energy, mitigate storm damage, and save water. Planting trees is a practical, effective, and unique way for volunteers to help a community rebuild after a natural disaster. RETREET brings people together to restore communities, promoting resiliency and environmental stewardship.

Discover our RETREET® program Plant with us!

Overhead close-up of eight gloved hands in red, orange, grey and green work gloves reaching in to pat down bark mulch in a circle around the base of a slender young tree, with grass at the edges.

Cigarette Litter Prevention Program

Did you know that 87.9% of litter in America is four inches or smaller in size? Of that litter, cigarette butts are the #1 most littered item (source: 2020 Keep America Beautiful Litter Study). Since 2002, our Cigarette Litter Prevention Program, the nation’s largest program aimed at eliminating cigarette litter, has been implemented in over 1,800 communities, reducing cigarette litter by HALF within six months, on average.

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