The Clean Neighborhoods Initiative is a city-wide litter prevention program for the City of Mullins, SC. This initiative is a partnership between Mullins City Council, Street and Sanitation Department, Police Department, and the residents. Based on numerous studies from across the nation, when the number of trash receptacles is significantly increased in higher litter areas, the overall litter rates of those areas decrease. 

This initiative will focus on identifying areas with high litter concentrations and building relationships within those neighborhoods to produce measurable results. Once those areas are identified within the city, a targeting plan will be initiated that consists of at least three components; Awareness, Prevention, and Intervention. The Clean Neighborhoods Initiative is designed to be an expandable program based upon monthly data and metrics from partners.

Components

Awareness

• Education content added to city newsletter, website, and publications.
• Targeted education, reading, and video content for school-aged children (studies show individuals under the age of 30 are more likely to litter).
• Social Media campaigns consisting of at least 8 targeted posts per month on platforms such as Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram (video, infographics, graphics, etc).

Prevention

• Place 25 trash receptacles and no littering signs throughout the city in high litter areas. Each council member will have 3 receptacles to be placed in their district and the Mayor will have 7 at-large.
• Continued enforcement of the SC state litter laws (Up to 15 lbs – Persons convicted of placing litter, as defined, on public or private property must remove that litter and shall be fined not less than $25 and not more than $100, or up to 30 days in jail, and the court must impose eight hours of “litter gathering or other form of community service).

Intervention

• Clean Neighborhoods Community Service Award - Recognition/Incentive program for individuals, neighborhoods, or districts with notable service or improvement towards creating cleaner neighborhoods.
• City-wide trash pick-up events organized by councilmembers 4 times a year.