Keep America Beautiful
One of these early campaigns in Pennsylvania (PennDOT) some attribute to having coined the term "litterbug," although the National Council of State Garden Clubs representative exhibited a "litter bug" emblem at the first Keep America Beautiful organizational meeting.
Author and Federated Garden Clubs of Maryland president Alice Rush McKeon published "The Litterbug Family" in 1931 containing poems and illustrations about the problem of roadside litter.
[citation needed] Keep America Beautiful joined with the Ad Council in 1961 to popularize the idea that individuals must help protect against the effects litter has on the environment.
In what later became known as the "Crying Indian" PSA,[15] the television ad, narrated by actor William Conrad with Peter Sarstedt's instrumental "Overture" playing in the background, featured Italian-American actor Iron Eyes Cody,[16] who portrayed a Native American man devastated to see the destruction of Earth's natural beauty caused by the thoughtless pollution and litter of a modern society.
The advertising campaign has been widely credited, including in Frank Lowenstein's "Voices of Protest", with inspiring America's fledgling environmental movement.
These include multiple state recycling organizations, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Hands on Network and the Points of Light Institute, the Arbor Day Foundation, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, National CleanUp Day, Ocean Conservancy, Sustainable Urban Forests Coalition, EARTHDAY.ORG, and Take Pride in America, among others.
[26] Despite self-identifying as having Native American ancestry with the stage name of Iron Eyes Cody, Espera Oscar DeCorti was of Italian descent.
She asserts that the group was created in response to Vermont's 1953 attempt to legislate a mandatory deposit to be paid at point of purchase on disposable beverage containers and banning the sale of beer in non-refillable bottles.
[29] Elizabeth Royte, author of Garbage Land, describes Keep America Beautiful as a "masterful example of corporate greenwash", writing that in contrast to its anti-litter campaigns, it ignores the potential of recycling legislation and resists changes to packaging.
