Thursday, June 05, 2008

Trashy "untrash Ohio" campaign

UPDATE: I have received a response from the Executive Director of the campaign:
Hello Ted,

Thank you for your email. In this case, the apple core is the trash as it is waste out of place. The Trash Spoils Everything, Untrash Ohio campaign is specifically targeted at males ages 18-35. Research shows that the majority of littering is done by Caucasian males, aged 18 to 35-years-old. In fact, 71% of the litter found along streets and highways is caused by persons less than 35 years of age, according to the Institute for Applied Research. Most individuals litter because they have no sense of ownership or responsibility to the property they are trashing and assume someone else will pick-up what they have left behind. Of course, not all males in this age range litter and we know that.

This age group does use the environment for activities they enjoy but do not think about the trash they leave behind. The idea of the campaign is to show how one piece of trash spoils the environment for everyone and the activities that they enjoy. I understand your thoughts on the apple core but the idea is to get people to think about proper waste disposal and not just throwing their waste on the ground, whether it is biodegradable or not. No, apple trees are not littering when their fruit falls on the ground, but when people put it there it is litter. KOB is addressing litter in this campaign, not the issue of golf courses.

I hope that this answers some of your questions. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,

Kerry

Kerry Crossen
Executive Director

Keep Ohio Beautiful
P.O. Box 12776
Cincinnati, OH 45212-0776
614.604.2136
www.keepohiobeautiful.us

On Ohio roads, you can now find billboards for the new untrash Ohio campaign. One of them that I see daily is
Image of golf ball sitting on an apple core that looks like a golf tee.
It confuses me. Which one is the trash? Is it the biodegradable apple core that will rot away in a week? Or is it the golf ball that will sit in that spot forever until some animal chokes on it and dies?

What's worse? An apple tree dropping lots of apples or a golf course dropping lots of golf balls? Evidently untrash Ohio has something against apple trees.

I haven't done the leg work, but I bet that untrash Ohio is just a front for some shady collaboration between Microsoft and the NGCOA...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is nothing wrong with golf courses, considering they mostly preserve nature.

Maybe you would prefer more office buildings be built instead of people being able to get out and enjoy nature.

Leave it to an engineer to think they're smarter than everybody else.

The only thing that's trash here is your views.

Ted Pavlic said...

Golf courses preserve nature? How so? You realize that nature was THERE before they cut it down, panted grass, mowed it, and put expensive houses around it, right?

What happens to all of the native animals that were there before the golf course?

And the main point is that the "untrash Ohio" campaign is poorly executed and looks more than a little silly. Their agenda is a unclear and not well thought out.

Ted Pavlic said...

(further... how many people go to golf courses to observe NATURE?)

(additionally... how many people would be PISSED if they were playing or watching golf and got interrupted by nature? Think about the groundhogs, deer, and even squirrels! That's not to mention the wide range of diversity that gets squashed when wetlands are destroyed to make room for golf courses.)

Anonymous said...

Ted needs to grow up and get a life.

They're trying to do good things, and there's always some idiot like Ted who has to bad mouth someone else's effort.

What have YOU done to help the trash problem in this state, Ted?