About Us
Keep Ohio Beautiful, a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization, believes that everyone deserves to live in an environment that is healthy, safe, clean and beautiful. As a state affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, Keep Ohio Beautiful serves as Ohio’s umbrella organization for our local 33 affiliate organizations in numerous Ohio communities. By providing a strong support system and the sharing of best practices, Keep Ohio Beautiful enables volunteers in communities throughout Ohio to improve waste handling practices, litter prevention, recycling, beautification, and community greening efforts.
Our Mission Statement
Empowering Ohio communities to take greater responsibility for improving their environment in Ohio through litter prevention, prevention, beautification, community greening, waste reduction and recycling.
Our Vision Statement
In order to provide strong support for our Ohio Keep America Beautiful affiliates, it is essential for Keep Ohio Beautiful to:
- Stimulate long-term environmental progress in the state and local communities via the Keep America Beautiful System;
- Raise awareness about litter, solid waste, community improvement and quality of life issues;
- Increase environmental stewardship and mobilize volunteers through a statewide education-based organization; and
- Partner with Ohio’s businesses, communities, schools, neighborhoods and government agencies to improve our environment through education, public awareness and community involvement.
Keep Ohio Beautiful plans to continue to positively impact our communities by expanding our services, building new collaborations, and increasing our community outreach and education. Keep Ohio Beautiful will create strong support systems for local communities by working at the grassroots level to improve waste handling practices (including litter/recycling) beautification & community greening efforts, and preservation of the environment we share in Ohio.
Our Guiding Principles
- Education- This is the key to encourage positive behaviors toward a community improvement.
- Individual Responsibility- Improving communities, their environment and quality of life all begins with personal responsibility.
- Public-private partnerships- Broad-based community alliances are essential to achieve sustainable community improvement.
- Volunteer Action- By engaging volunteers, we extend the reach of our educational efforts and multiply the impact of our actions.
Our Focus Areas
Studies have shown that a beautified community translates into a safe, healthy community and improves quality of life. Projects supported by Keep Ohio Beautiful encompass the three focus areas described below and include creating community gardens, preventing and cleaning up litter and graffiti, recycling and waste reduction.
Litter Prevention
In 2011, KOB and its affiliates removed 2,087,360 pounds of litter and debris from Ohio’s landscape.
Why It’s Needed:
While litter prevention campaigns have helped improve the litter picture over the past 40 years, it remains a significant and costly problem for communities and businesses. The Ohio Department of Transportation, for example, spends nearly $4.5 million every year to clean up our state roadways.
Litter also lowers assessed property values, drives away homebuyers and hinders business development.
How KOB Helps:
We identify the causes of litter and reduce its impact by organizing cleanups and promoting proper waste handling in our communities.
Waste Reduction and Recycling
3,698,008 pounds of solid waste kept out of landfills in 2011.
Why It’s Needed:
Recycling creates more jobs than landfills and incineration. Recycling conserves our natural resources, saves landfill space, conserves energy, and reduces water pollution, air pollution and the green house gas emissions that cause global warming.
How KOB Helps:
We help reduce the impact of solid waste in our communities through integrated programs and education about responsible consumerism, source reduction, reuse, and recycling, and landfills, composting and waste-to-energy technologies.
Beautification and Community Greening
Approximately 143,840 Ohio residents were touched through Keep Ohio Beautiful and its affiliates’ programs in 2011.
Why It’s Needed:
Community greening improves quality of life, lowers crime and engages citizens. Buildings with high levels of greenery had 48% fewer property crimes and 56% fewer violent crimes, according to the 2009 National Visible Litter Survey and Litter Cost Study, commissioned by Keep America Beautiful.
How KOB Helps:
We improve the visual aspects of our communities through programs that beautify and naturally clean our environment – creating community gardens, restoring vacant lots, beautifying highways and shorelines, urban forests, planting native flora, and preventing and abating graffiti.