Posted on Oct 14, 2025 | Blog,News
Thank You For Attending the 2025 Keep Louisiana Beautiful State Conference!
Thank you for attending the 2025 Keep Louisiana Beautiful State Conference! This year’s conference drew our largest attendance ever, with over 300 attendees! Coming together to share, learn, and network were individuals from 10 different states, 88 cities, 41 Community Affiliates, and 12 University Affiliates.
The conference started on Monday with local field trips to the Republic Services’ Materials Recovery Facility, LSU AgCenter Botanic Gardens, and LSU Center for River Studies. Attendees could choose from the three field trips, where they learned about the recycling process, the effects of urbanization on wetlands and channelization, and the topography and bathymetry of the Mississippi River Delta.
Field trip to Republic MRF
On Tuesday morning, we heard updates from the Lieutenant Governor and Susan Russell, KLB’s Executive Director. An exciting announcement was a new waterway cleanup initiative, Love Our Waterways, coming to Louisiana in September 2026. From our main session speakers, guests learned about the importance of keeping our waterways clean, and they then attended breakout sessions, which featured topics on litter enforcement, recycling, forests, and media training.
During the Circle of Excellence Awards Luncheon, presented by Dr. Neil Aspinwall, Chancellor of SOWLA Technical Community College, KLB welcomed its new Affiliates, announced the introduction of Community College Affiliates, and recognized 34 Community Affiliates for meeting Circle of Excellence requirements.
Media Training 101 breakout session
The afternoon consisted of more breakout sessions, including establishing a customized litter program, grant resources, environmental education, social media messaging, and roundtable discussions revolving around festival waste and city-wide cleanups. The day wrapped up with a poolside networking happy hour outside of the hotel.
On the final day of the conference, attendees heard talks regarding waste tires from the LA Department of Environmental Quality and the LA Department of Transportation and Development before breaking into final breakout sessions. These final sessions covered engaging local businesses for community impact, how to launch a mural project in your community, keeping waste out of landfills during campus move-out days, and volunteer recruitment.
The conference concluded with the annual Everyday Hero Awards, a luncheon recognizing those who go the extra mile to keep our communities litter-free and beautiful. These businesses, organizations, and individual citizens are moving Louisiana towards a more sustainable future through their commendable, environmentally conscious efforts. Winners included:
- Rocksey’s Young Leadership Award: Armaan Basra (Calcasieu Parish)
- Litter Enforcement Award: Senior Agent Mason Castello (St. John Parish)
- Special Leadership Award: Representative John R. Illg, Jr. (Jefferson Parish)
- Community Improvement Award: Mayor Tom Arceneaux & Block by Block, City of Shreveport (Caddo Parish)
- Clean Biz Leadership Award: Infiniti of Baton Rouge (East Baton Rouge Parish)
- Outstanding State Agency Award: Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries
- Outstanding Community Affiliate Award: Keep Calcasieu Beautiful (Calcasieu Parish)
- Outstanding University Affiliate Award: Keep Xavier Beautiful (Orleans Parish)
- Collegiate Environmental Steward Award: Emma Bourgeois, University of New Orleans (Orleans Parish)
- Leaders Against Litter Award: Randy Delatte, Livingston Parish President (Livingston Parish)
- Let Louisiana Shine Volunteer Award: Linda Wicker (Tangipahoa Parish)
- Alice Foster Award: Staci Albritton Mitchell (Ouachita Parish)
Emma Bourgeois was awarded the Collegiate Environmental Steward Award
All of the speaker bios and presentations can be found here. Conference photos are also now available online.
Thank you for being a part of our network and for all you do to help tackle litter in Louisiana! This conference would not be possible without support from our sponsors:
