Ep. 54: Litter Prevention and Community Action with Keep America Beautiful

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (00:00.652)
Litter is one of the most visible forms of waste in our communities, but it’s also a clue about our habits, our systems, and how we care for the places we share. And as today’s conversation taught me, litter has so much more to tell us. Welcome to Sustainable in the Suburbs, a podcast for the eco curious who want to live a greener life and are looking for a place to start. I’m your host, Sarah Robertson Barnes, a soccer mom with a station wagon and a passion for sustainable living.

Each week I’ll bring you practical tips and honest conversations to help you waste less, save money, and make small, doable shifts that actually fit your real life. Because sustainable living doesn’t have to be perfect to matter, and you don’t have to do it all to make a difference. Hello, and welcome to Sustainable in the Suburbs, the podcast where we start where we are, use what we have, and live a little greener, one small shift at a time. My name is Sarah, and I’m grateful to be spending a little bit of time with you today.

If this is your first time here, welcome. This podcast is bi-weekly with new episodes out every other Tuesday. So please make sure that you’re following the show wherever you are listening today so that you don’t miss an episode. And if you’d like to support the show, I would be so grateful if you left a rating or a review wherever you are listening today, as it really does help other folks find us. Or you can click the support the show link in the show notes. For all of the show notes,

And blog posts and the newsletter and everything else, head on over to sustainable in the suburbs.com. And as you’re listening to today’s interview, in case it isn’t obvious, I was a bit under the weather and sounding like my favorite thing to talk about, which is garbage. But it does sound worse than it is. So let’s do just that and talk about garbage. Have you ever noticed litter around your neighborhood? Along the side of the road or in the park, near the school, around a bus stop?

Maybe you’ve taken part in a community litter cleanup and seen just how much can collect in the places that we pass through every day. Litter can seem like a small thing, annoying and it’s unsightly, but it’s also easy to dismiss as someone else’s problem. But litter tells the story of how we live and who we are and what kind of communities we want to build. Because once you start paying attention to where it shows up and what kinds of things are being left behind.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (02:26.294)
It starts to point to something bigger. Litter tells us something about our habits and our infrastructure, our public spaces, and the systems that can make some choices easier than others. It also tells us a lot about care, who feels responsible for a place, whether there is easy access to garbage and recycling, and what happens when a space feels neglected, and what can happen when people come together to look after those places.

My last episode was about plastic in our homes. The plastic we bring in, the plastic we already have, the reusables we actually use, and the disposable things we can sometimes give one more job before throwing them away. Today’s conversation takes that idea out into the community because sustainability does not stop at our front door. It shows up in our parks and on the sidewalk in the schoolyards, along our roadways and waterways.

And trails and beaches and other public spaces. It shows up in the choices that we make as individuals, but also in the infrastructure around us, the systems we rely on, the businesses that shape our habits, and the community norms we build together. For a lot of people who care about the environment but may feel overwhelmed by the size of the problem, a litter cleanup can be a very real starting point. It’s tangible and it’s hyperlocal.

It’s something you can do with your kids and your neighbors or a community group. My guest today is Jenny Lawson, president and CEO of Keep America Beautiful, a national nonprofit organization that works with local affiliates, volunteers, public agencies, and corporate partners to reduce litter, increase recycling, and improve communities across the United States. She brings an interesting mix of environmental work.

Community building and civic engagement to this conversation. Jenny is joining me to talk about the 2026 Keep America Beautiful National Litter Study, which looks at how litter in the United States has changed since 2020. We talk about what’s improving, what still needs work, and what litter tells us about how we live now. Here’s my conversation with Jenny.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (04:42.914)
Hello, Jenny. Welcome to Sustainable in the Suburbs. I’ve really been looking forward to this conversation.

Jennifer Lawson (04:49.26)
Me too, Sarah. I’m happy to be here.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (04:51.446)
Yeah. So I’d love to start with your path to keep America beautiful and what brought you into this work?

Jennifer Lawson (04:58.264)
Yeah, you know, sometimes I think the simplest answer is fate. And then I think it’s, you know, 30 years of work. So I have had a career in sort of the intersection of social impact and community and companies to some extent, that started in affordable housing and housing policy.

But then over time grew into the environments in which communities can be successful. Spent a good part of my career at the Nature Conservancy, and from there went into volunteering, understanding the power of the volunteer and really changing the inner dialogue of people and the possible dialogue in communities around really important issues of conservation, climate.

and sustainability. And so was at Points of Light, which is the former President George H.W. Bush’s Thousand Points of Light foundation that really focuses on volunteering. And then one day somebody said, have you ever thought about this job? and sent me the opportunity to look at the intersection of volunteerism and environmental work.

And the work that companies do, frankly, at Keep America Beautiful. So you you know, every now and then something it comes across your desk and you think, this was absolutely made for me. And and sure enough, I’m happy to have been here now for four years.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (06:31.52)
Wow, that’s it’s not a linear path, but it just seems so perfect. Yes. So for listeners who may only know the name, what does Keep America Beautiful do today?

Jennifer Lawson (06:37.826)
Meant to be. Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Lawson (06:45.366)
Yeah. So Keep America Beautiful is actually a nearly 75-year-old nonprofit, really known for iconic advertising and behavior change communications around litter cleanup, and really some of the earliest environmental advertising. And and then grew into this network of more than 770 affiliates almost entirely across the US that focus on

Community action. So whether it’s cleaning up litter, recycling, planting trees, beautifying neighborhoods, bringing people together to sort of develop community-based relationships that can make change in community, environmental change in community sustainable. and that’s what we do today. So those networks across America, they really do the work on the ground. each one of them is a standalone organization, and we provide

coordination and financial support where we where we can raise the money and find it. And then some of the communications and engagement and research overlay that really helps those engines work in local communities.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (07:58.744)
Why does litter prevention continue to be such a central part of that work?

Jennifer Lawson (08:02.924)
Because litter continues to be a problem. You know, when I first started this job, David Suzaki at Terracycle said to me, you know, Jenny, litter is part of the human experience. It’s how we learned about ancient cultures was by looking at their litter piles, right? Like so this is not I mean, it’s it’s a different problem in the modern age, but litter has been part of the human experience from the beginning of time. Now, managing that litter, taking care of it.

Doing it responsibly, not a letting it affect communities. That’s the challenge of now, right? So litter continues to be a problem across America. But the the good news is our our most recent litter study shows that things are getting better. In fact, I’m, you know, in this day and age, it’s really hard to find things that are getting better. but this is one of those opportunities. Litter’s dropped 34% since 2020.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (09:00.418)
Which is incredible. We’re gonna get to the litter study in just a moment. I have so many questions about that. it was a wonderful read. But I think a lot of people think of litter as an eyesore when they just notice when we’re walking through a park or driving down the road. And the study really makes the case that litter affects communities in much deeper ways. So how does litter change the way people feel about the places where they live?

Jennifer Lawson (09:23.594)
I think y you’ve articulated it actually. Litter changes the way people feel about where they live. It it affects how they value their neighborhood, including the property values. It affects how they value the relationship with others and how they feel about what’s happening in their neighborhood. So historically we know that litter begets litter. When litter’s on the ground, it attracts more litter.

when less litter’s on the ground, it sends a a values-based message to others that we don’t litter in this neighborhood, in this city, in this town, right? So litter really helps reflect positive change in community when when it’s taken care of properly.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (10:10.528)
One thing that stood out to me in this study is how widely people seem to agree that litter is a problem. So why do you think that that’s an issue that cuts across communities and even political perspectives?

Jennifer Lawson (10:22.412)
Because it’s something that we each see for ourselves. We don’t need the lens of the media or the lens of politics to let us see and feel how we react when litter’s on the ground in our community. So, you know, I think at the core, it’s it’s very apolitical. you know, our own organization, you would think across America in this day and age, 770 affiliates.

They come in all shapes and colors and sizes, right? So so we consider ourselves to be very apolitical because we represent so many different voices, because litter is also a hyper-local problem. And politics tends to get less defined and and contentious the closer to that block, that neighborhood, that community, the conversation gets. And so litter.

is a neighborhood based problem. And so neighborhood and and neighbors coming together really start to form part of the solution.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (11:27.2)
That makes so much sense when we think about how this does happen at a community level. That’s every litter cleanup I’ve ever been a part of has involved my neighbors or my school community. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the 2026 National Litter Study gave us a really clear picture of what’s actually happening with litter across roadways and waterways and now coastal areas, which is really neat to see. and what interests me most is not just the numbers themselves, which we’ll talk about, but

It’s what those numbers reveal about our habits and our systems and the way that our daily life is changing. So why did Keep America Beautiful feel it was important to update the National Literacy now?

Jennifer Lawson (12:07.822)
So it has been our tradition to update this every five years. And so we’re sort of on that trajectory, having last done the study in 2020, where we also saw a decline, but not as significant as the one we’re seeing this time around. And so we were very excited to update it. It also here in the US comes with, you know, the country’s 250th birthday and really some really other

big landmarks that made it the right time to do a benchmark of where we are against this problem.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (12:42.606)
Mm-hmm and the study does show real progress, but it also makes it clear that the problem is far from solved. So what should people understand about sort of both sides of that finding?

Jennifer Lawson (12:52.686)
Sure. I mean, you know, there’s no single fix for litter. It’s not like we can all go do one thing and that’s gonna, you know, just dramatically change what happens next. The reality is, you know, strong programs that educate and shape behavior. So that culture of we don’t litter here becomes part of the national vocabulary. I’m s and I think otherwise strong local programs, better infrastructure.

And more engagement from business and community partners. When we all work together, good things happen. and so this is a place where not only does good things happen, but you see it pretty quickly, right? When when all those community groups and infrastructure and the community’s picking up the litter and there’s a community cleanup, and then the local government comes by with the trucks and takes the litter to the landfill or to recycling, all of those things working together point to success. And

I think we’re really excited because it’s something that each of us can participate in at every level level, whether you’re an individual, whether you’re a community leader, whether you’re a city, whether you’re a state or a province, right? Each piece each piece along the way adds together for that total solution.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (14:12.238)
And one thing that really stood out to me too was it shows how the litter stream is changing with things like cardboard and vaping related litter, PPE, which makes a bit of sense, but ugh, and plastic water bottles are all moving in different directions. So what do those shifts tell you about how our daily lives have changed over the last five years?

Jennifer Lawson (14:33.58)
Yeah. I mean, think about the last five years. How much cardboard gets delivered to your doorstep on any given week, month, year. And you and I are just, you know, single people in a whole stream of, you know, customers of delivery companies. And you know, have it come to your doorstep, which is super convenient, but it also causes litter, right? So cardboard litter’s up 50%, right? It’s a reflection of our online shopping habit.

PPE litter, as you mentioned, is down 76%, right? We’re not living in that constant presence of PPE anymore. So cigarette litter is down very significantly, but e-cigarette litter is up, right? So the prevalence of vaping and vaping products, which are really complicated to remove and recycle because of the

batteries that are in them, those things present a new set of challenges. So that conversation about why why do we still do this? Because the challenges are are forever changing. And that 20% increase in plastic water bottles, you know, it reflects how we consume water across the country.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (15:51.382)
Yeah. I I when I’m walking out on the trails by my house every day, I live in the suburbs, but we do have some trails along the ravines where they couldn’t build more houses. And every day I take out a bag and I pick up litter along the trails because this is where the kids walk home from high school. Right. So every day I’m picking up chip bags and Tim Hortons cups and all those kinds of things. So in my mind, litter is big because those are the types of things that I’m seeing. But what I noticed in the study was that

Items under four inches make up the largest share of litter. And what is like what does that tell us about how what’s the hardest to prevent and clean up?

Jennifer Lawson (16:28.526)
Well, if you think about it, those little bits of litter, I’ve done it, you’ve done it, like you something’s in your pocket, and the next thing you know, it’s not in your pocket anymore, right? That bit of a receipt or what have you. Like it’s very common for people to accidentally litter small things. Cigarette butts make up the majority of small litter. And that too is a reflection of what’s happening out there in the world.

And so the the little bits get lost in the conversation. So there’s easy things you can do. Put the cap back on your plastic bottle before and recycle it, right? Like don’t don’t take those things apart, put it back on and throw it in recycling. you know, take a cigarette butt carrier and they make these things that you can put the butts in so it doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket and you take it home, right? Because cigarette butts are not

They’re they’re not biodegradable. Everybody sort of thinks, it’s just paper. It is not paper. It is plastic and it stays forever in the environment. So it’s super important not to litter those things and to get that message across. I half the people I talk to still to this day think, it’s just paper, it’ll biodegrade. Well, no, it it doesn’t, right? And you know, I other I think also when you think about litter, you do think about those big things. And so when you’re out

picking up litter with a group or even on your own or with your dog, you see the big things, but the reality is, and what we ask for people is look for the little things too, because they really do make a big difference.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (18:09.858)
Yeah. I was gonna ask you, and I think you touched on this a little bit earlier, but of course we drop things by accident. I’ve had kids in strollers that throw out granola bar wrappers and that sort of thing. But something that I really struggle to wrap my mind around is again, if I’m walking on the trails and someone takes a Tim Hortons cup and like hides it in a tree stump or something like that, like you carried that in full. You can’t carry that out empty. I just don’t

I’m really struggling to understand that psychology. I wonder if you had any insight into that.

Jennifer Lawson (18:40.642)
Well, I think that would solve so many so many problems. What what we know is that access to the proper way to manage waste is a really important part of the solution. And so if you’re walking along and you don’t see a a a trash container for that cup or bottle or what or recycling bin for that bottle,

People don’t know how to do the right thing. I personally believe that most people actually want to do the right thing and they just don’t see a way. And so they leave it behind. and so I think communicating a way, which is just take it with you, put it in the car and you know, put it in your your your dispos your garbage at home, right? Like that’s a pretty easy message, but it gets overlaid with messages that tell them just to leave it there. So

I think that’s why education is important, really continuing to remind people how to do the right thing.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (19:44.3)
Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. So the study did give us this picture of how the litter stream is changing, but it is declining overall. I want to say that again. some things are still persistent and some new challenges are emerging. So the main thing I came away with reading the study was that progress is happening and that means there are things that we can learn from what’s working. So when you look at the decline of litter since twenty twenty, what do you think has made the biggest difference?

Jennifer Lawson (20:11.596)
I think better infrastructure mostly, stronger local programs, stronger enforcement, you know, tire litter continu and and automotive litter continues to be a huge problem across the US. And but the stronger there are enforcement programs, the the better the outcome, right? So when you get strong local programs and enforcement and good infrastructure, like we just talked about.

What are those what are the where do those waste bins go? How frequently are they displayed, are they placed throughout a park? how are recycling facilities set up outside of camping areas, right? People love to go into natural areas in the summer and they take their fishing rods and they take their styrofoam coolers and they take all sorts of things. So

How do we set up good facilities? And we’re doing pilots with a National Park Foundation right now that sets up facilities for those hard to recycle items at the end of the trail. So you come off the trail and there’s somewhere for it to go. When programs like that are in place, the outcomes are better. And then I think it’s that again, that multi-sector engagement. So it’s local governments, it’s volunteer organizations, it’s education of people.

When and companies getting engaged and how far can they go with packaging and other sustainability shifts that make it easier and easier for consumers to participate in a more sustainable economy and do the right thing.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (21:50.84)
That role of local governments and community partnerships play such a huge role in really like making that access to infrastructure, which is obviously a huge piece of it. that you’ve mentioned the education piece many times. So, you know, the study did talk about social norms and shared responsibility. So how do we start to educate the public and better and shift those norms within a community?

Jennifer Lawson (22:14.732)
Yeah. It’s interesting. We’re running a bunch of pilots right now under a program called Love Where You Live. And it it is leading with the idea that if you help people remember that when they take care of their environment and they clean up, they are demonstrating that they love their neighborhood, their block, their city, their state, their community, right? So can we remind people

That you love where you live. And we take care of places that we love and things that we love. So it’s just a little bit f extra effort to take care. And the early pilots of this campaign really show people are more willing to and better understand how to recycle, more willing to do it, see that that is an important part of being a citizen in their community, right? So those are great indicators of how do we sort of get people

into this mindset that litter free communities is about.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (23:18.848)
Yeah. At its heart sustainability is about care. That’s what I’m always saying on the show. So I love hearing that so much. Yeah.

Jennifer Lawson (23:26.402)
Yeah. Well, I think the other piece of it is in this in this sort of age where the conversation around loneliness is so important, right? People are feeling isolated, they’re focused on what they’re doing online. Getting involved in caring for your community is actually a IRL experience, right? You go out and actually physically meet your neighbors, you participate in something in your community.

It doesn’t have to take up a lot of time. It’s highly enjoyable. This is the other piece that I think is a great you say to people, let’s join me for litter cleanup. You’re like, Well, that doesn’t sound fun. My advice is always go do one and then tell me if you feel the same way. Because people have fun when they’re in doing

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (24:14.728)
Yeah, especially when you get the kids involved because they’re great spotters. So yeah.

Jennifer Lawson (24:21.21)
And we’ve got bingo cards, right? For you know, find the weirdest thing, find the smallest thing, find the biggest thing, right? You can make it a game for younger kids. We highly encourage going out when you’re walking your pet and have just an extra bag that you take along and clean up litter on the way, right? Because we all get very frustrated when walking our pets and finding litter.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (24:42.414)
And when people notice you doing it, because I I mentioned earlier I do it when I’m walking my dog every day, they say, wow, thank you for doing that. And I think that that influences them just that little bit to also pick up a piece and drop it in the trash can at the end of the trail. So people are watching what you’re doing and you do have the power to shift that influence with the folks that you see every day. Yeah.

Jennifer Lawson (25:04.93)
I completely agree.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (25:06.816)
So so much of what we’ve already talked about comes back to this idea that litter is not solved by one group of people just doing one thing one time. it does take individual behavior, yes, and also infrastructure and community programs, businesses and local governments and all the systems that have to work together to make that better choice easier. So, how do you think about the relationship between individual action and that broader community or systems level change?

Jennifer Lawson (25:35.33)
I think they need to work hand in hand. So that individual action is both the litter that you clean up on your own or with your girlfriends on a w I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of plogging, picking up litter while jogging. So maybe you go plug with the, you know, an athletic friend and you know, again, make it fun and make it engaging. At the same time, I think it develops in people a certain set of advocacy. So letting

your community know that this is important to you. You know, sending emails to the solid waste team or to your local official when you see something that’s illegal dumping, right? You can get in the game by identifying problem areas and things that the government needs to work on. There’s also when you have the opportunity to vote for funding for waste management programs, that’s a really good thing. So there’s some very simple ways that people can take very important action.

From a citizen perspective. Now, the role of government is you need to invest to solve the problem. so you know, cutting back on infrastructure is not going to improve anything. it doesn’t help your town’s economics in the long run because it deters business. you know, if litter is out in community. So the the government needs to be

supported in building appropriate infrastructure, including recycling, right? So US recycling is very very desperate and managed in 50 different ways across the country, probably more like 300 different ways across the country. And so the more we can smooth out those systems and find consistency, the better off we are.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (27:27.17)
We had that similar situation in Ontario and it’s just now come under one umbrella in Ontario. but of course, it can’t be the same across Ontario because the facilities in Toronto are very different from the facilities available in Northern Ontario. So it is that education and infrastructure piece again. and what what role do businesses and producers need to play in preventing litter before it becomes something that communities need to deal with?

Jennifer Lawson (27:53.804)
Yeah, I and I think we’re seeing some of those changes, right? So it is you know, how do you make packaging that is less likely to create lid art, right? So I’ve seen in Europe the the tiny little bit of the plastic top on a bottle sticks with the bottle. It doesn’t, it’s not a separate thing. So you don’t have the opportunity to accidentally drop that lid or have it be separated in the it before recycling.

I think the more recycled materials become the the you know the baseline for products. So more glass, more aluminum, things that are highly, highly recyclable help incentivize getting those materials back into waste management, not just left on the ground. I think again, you know, more sustainable or biodegradable or compostable products, all of these things.

That comes with an infrastructure component that says, can your large local city actually handle compostable paper bags and things, right? So I think working with cities to really align the infrastructure with the materials, right? There’s there’s many, many ways that that companies can can be a part of it. There’s also the whole reuse conversation, right? So so when can we reuse

materials and products and and actually make that really functional. So I just got a a jar of face cream and it was, you know, this can this bottle can be reused. Well the fancy glass outside bottle can be reused, but then they deliver the new product to you in a plastic container, which to me I’m just like, yes, it’s just like really so close. So we just have to keep pressing on

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (29:44.328)
So close. Really?

Jennifer Lawson (29:50.54)
actual solutions, right? So maybe the marketing language comes first and the actual reality of reuse is something that still needs to evolve, but I think we’ve got to figure out, you know, how to make that actually work.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (30:03.34)
I think we’re definitely on that path. We have the solutions we need. We just need to orient them. Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Lawson (30:11.394)
Yes. That’s it’s a great way to look at it. Yeah. I think that’s right.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (30:14.934)
So I’d love to end by coming back to this idea of the communities that we want to build going forward. And we’ve talked about what litter reveals and what is changing and what’s working. So where do we go from here? What do you see as the biggest opportunity right now for continued progress on litter?

Jennifer Lawson (30:33.772)
Yeah. I, you know, I think the biggest opportunity is for folks to get involved with their time, but also get involved with their advocacy and their pressure. I mean, we see what happens when social media starts to put pressure on governments for change. I think it’s a great thing, right? Like so starting to use what you’re seeing and what you’re doing.

as baseline for what you want to communicate to your local and state and community governments, hugely, hugely important because that’s also picked up by business, right? Business sees what’s happening in the advocacy space and they watch it very carefully and they start to analyze how that may impact their businesses down the line and make changes accordingly, right? So I think that citizen engagement is so important.

As both active sort of participants in setting community values and demonstrating those values through action, and then as advocates for the change that needs to happen. And that’s not at all putting business off to the side, but what can you and I and your average person living in suburbia do? Like that’s I think what you can do. And byproducts that are that are modeling the behaviors we want to see.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (32:01.39)
Absolutely. Yeah. And go to town council and listen to the the solid waste manager. I did that recently and it was fascinating. I learned so much that I had no idea of, so much progress that they’re making on their waste diversion policies that I had no idea about. And I consider myself fairly engaged on that. but it was really interesting and you can just do that. You can just turn up and listen to the meeting. So I’d encourage folks to do that as well. Yeah.

Jennifer Lawson (32:27.958)
Yeah. And and a lot of times those things are streamed these days. So you can listen to it in the evenings or what have you. being there I think says a lot, but there are other ways.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (32:39.091)
Yeah. So what’s giving you hope when you look at the work happening in communities across the country today?

Jennifer Lawson (32:46.592)
So litter’s down by 34%. And that’s in five years. And what I’m starting to ask my team is, are we on a path where we can actually get to zero? Right. And and I started by saying, listen, this is part of the human condition, right? But can we get to a point where litter is managed appropriately in communities? End of end of statement, right? Like it may fall, but it’s picked up quickly, or it’s identified and it doesn’t become

a lasting part of the landscape. If that if it was 34 and five years, can we get the remaining 66% off the ground in the next 10 or 20 years? Can we actually see a solution that gets us to zero litter? And that has got me just cylinders, brains, brain cells firing in all directions, right? Like what could be possible?

And I and then I think this idea that Americ that Americans, Canadians, all of us, we love our towns and communities. And really stepping up to be a part of that and demonstrating that love, I think is a great way to overcome a lot of the barriers we’re seeing right now.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (34:03.572)
Yeah. So what’s next for Keep America Beau?

Jennifer Lawson (34:06.446)
We’re gonna push on that love concept. I think you’re gonna see more energy from us around this idea of loving your community. And then, you know, with a network of 770 affiliates across the country, how do we bring that power to solve a big problem? can we get all the litter out of the Mississippi River, right? Do we have enough intensity if we’re focused and organized?

Can we actually solve this problem at a bigger and bigger scale? So those are the things we’re gonna look forward to doing in the next couple of years. And I look forward to coming back and telling you all about it.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (34:46.764)
Yes, I can’t wait for the next litter study. Well, thank you, Jenny, so much for coming on the show and for helping us think about litter as something more than garbage on the ground and something that we can actually do something about. Thank you so much.

Jennifer Lawson (34:49.311)
Great.

Jennifer Lawson (35:01.801)
My pleasure.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (35:04.642)
Thank you again so much to Jenny Lawson and Keep America Beautiful for coming on the show today. And I hope this conversation helped you think about litter a little differently, not just as garbage on the ground or something annoying to notice in the park, but something that tells us about how we’re living and how we’re caring for the places we share. So your one small shift for this week is to choose one shared space that you pass through regularly. It could be a park, the sidewalk, outside your house.

A trail, the schoolyard, the bus stop, or a stretch of road in your town, and notice it a little differently. Is there litter? What kinds of things are showing up? Are there bins nearby? Does the space feel cared for? And is there one small thing that you could do to help care for it too? So that might mean picking up five pieces of litter on your morning walk or joining or starting a local cleanup, asking your municipality about bins in a spot where they are clearly needed.

Or simply paying attention to a place that you usually move through on autopilot. So I will include links in the show notes to Keep America Beautiful, the 2026 National Litter Study, and resources for finding or organizing a cleanup in your own community. And if this conversation was helpful, I would love it if you followed or subscribed to the show, left a rating or a review, or shared this episode on social media to reach someone else who cares about their neighborhood and wants a practical place to start.

You can also find more practical sustainability ideas at sustainable in the suburbs dot com. Thank you so much for listening today. Until next time, start where you are, use what you have, and live a little greener.

Thanks for tuning in to Sustainable in the Suburbs. Every small step adds up, and I’m so glad we’re doing this together. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. You can find me at sustainableintheburbs.com or at Sarah Robertson Barnes on all the things. Until next time, start where you are, use what you have, and live a little greener. This is edited by Cardinal Studio. How to start your own.

Jennifer Lawson (37:16.312)
For more information about how to podcast, please visit www.cardinal studio.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (37:19.222)
Please visitio.co or email Mike at mike at cardinal.co. You can also find the details in the show.