Love the Boot Week kicks off today and Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser said there are more than 600 clean-up and beautification events planned in all 64 parishes aimed at cleaning up litter in Louisiana, April 20th through the 28th.
“We’ll be cleaning up all over Louisiana, but we encourage people to clean up all the time and not litter. So, we’re making great progress in Louisiana, but we’ve still got a lot of work to do but this is one week that we can highlight cleaning up our great state,” said Nungesser.
You can sign up to get involved at KeepLouisianaBeautiful.org and even if you can’t participate next week, Nungesser said any day of the year you can do your part by picking up litter.
“We now have a system where if you want to go to your local library and check out some tongs and a vest and get some garbage bags and take your family out to clean up a part of Louisiana, get some exercise, we encourage you to do that,” said Nungesser.
Last year almost 13,000 individuals participated in Love the Boot Week and collected 313 tons of litter in every corner of the state. And it’s not just litter removal, participants also planted trees and refurbished gardens.
He said having a clean state goes far beyond beautification, it impacts tourism and economic development. More than 20 years ago, Nungesser said Louisiana was being considered as the site for a Nissan plant and litter trashed the opportunity.
“And everybody thought he was going to announce he’s moving the plant to New Orleans East, and he says we’ve decided to go to Jackson, Mississippi because I can’t subject my employees to a living in a city that is this dirty,” said Nungesser.
Nungesser says it’s only about 25% of the population that litter and if you go out and pick up trash for a day, you’re 80% less likely to litter in the future.
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