In order to measure the amount of litter in a community for monitoring and analyzing problems and progress, Keep America Beautiful designed a tool for affiliates that let's us "take a reading" on the amount of litter in our communities.

The Litter Index is required of all KAB affiliates, as a prerequisite for affiliation and each year in order to maintain good standing.

OK, how do we index litter?

A map is prepared of the community involved, in our case the City of Shelby. We divide our area up into 5 areas, which are the five garbage collection routes, corresponding to the five days in the week.

From those five main areas, several sub-areas are determined in order to sample residential, commercial, institutional, or other types of areas.

Next a group of scorers meets for training in the scoring system. There are four numbers used, One, Two, Three, and Four.

One - "No Litter" Signifies an area that is not littered. There may be a few widely scattered pieces of litter, but you have to look hard to see it. The area has a neat and tidy appearance.

Two - "Slightly Littered" Small amounts of litter obvious. Could be collected by a couple of people in a short time. Litter is definitely present but not overwhelming.

Three - "Littered" Litter is visible throughout the sub-area, would require an organized effort at removal. The littered area clearly needs addressing.

Four - "Extremely Littered" Continuous litter level is first impression of the area. May include major illegal dump sites that would require equipment and extra manpower to remove. Impression is of lack of concern about litter in the sub-area.