Bienvenue én Louisiane, Keep Louisiana Beautiful. That is the very first thing that can be seen when driving into Louisiana. Despite this phrase, Louisiana, especially New Orleans is facing problems with litter, which is an important problem because New Orleans relies heavily on tourism. From empty cans, abandoned tires, and Mardi Gras beads, New Orleans streets are flooded with garbage and litter. Research from California State University says that people tend to litter more in cities that look dirtier, and tend to not litter as much when a city is cleaner looking. This is important because due to the vast amounts of litter that are already strewn around the city, it is compelling people to litter more. The large amounts of litter in the city is causing tourists to not want to visit New Orleans, which is an issue because tourism is the driving force of New Orleans’ economy. Previous movements to try to reduce this problem have not worked, which means something has to be done about this issue. 

Keeping Louisiana beautiful is a lot to live up to, but it is not impossible. Numerous efforts have already been put into place to try to help this situation. An example of these efforts would be, Keep New Orleans Beautiful, which is a non-profit organization that supplies different services to keep New Orleans litter free. However, there is a better solution to the pollution problem in New Orleans. This would be creating another non-profit organization, named NO More Trash in NOla, which would be made up of everyday New Orleans citizens. This would be more beneficial to New Orleans by providing help in the areas where Keep New Orleans Beautiful is lacking. The new non-profit organization would work very closely with Louisiana’s government to construct plans of attack to combat this issue. One of the first plans that would be issued would be improving the sanitation services of New Orleans by making recycling bins mandatory for every home and business in the city. Another plan that would be issued would be increasing fines on littering in the city, which would incline citizens to litter less. NO More Trash in NOla would also hold fundraisers, charity events, and monthly meetings to try to educate the people of New Orleans. Even though this issue seems very large and difficult to improve, there are also small everyday tasks that are simple for New Orleans citizens to achieve to improve their quality of life. Citizens can pick up litter, refrain from dumping trash into storm drains, recycle, and have a better understanding of what pollution does to the environment. All of these elements will improve the quality of life for the people living in New Orleans, as well as the millions of tourists who come to visit every year. 

If New Orleans can combat this littering issue, their future is very bright and it will continue to get brighter. Implicating the use of 2 non-profit organizations, government involvement, and education of the people of New Orleans will improve the quality of life in New Orleans, and it will improve tourism in the city, which is the backbone of New Orleans’ economy. All of these elements will work together to partially and hopefully in the future, completely abolish the littering problem in New Orleans to keep the city beautiful for generations to come.