The Georgia Department of Transportation’s (Georgia DOT) statewide anti-littering campaign, Keep It Clean Georgia, won top honors from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ (AASHTO) Committee on Transportation Communications (TransComm) during its annual meeting in Santa Fe on September 8, 2022. The campaign received the "Excel (with a consultant)" award, one of just two Excel awards handed out each year. The Excel award is TransComm’s highest honor awarded as a result of the Skills Award competition.

The team won the award with the entry “Program Expansion – Keep it Clean Georgia Anti-Litter Campaign” which underscored the growth of Georgia DOT’s anti-litter program since its launch nearly two years ago, including an expanded partnership with the Georgia Film Office and the Adopt-a-Highway Maintenance Corporation. Through strong messaging and creative campaigns, along with strategic collaboration with cities, counties and municipalities statewide, Georgia DOT’s Keep It Clean Georgia campaign seeks to motivate Georgians and those visiting the Peach State to not only avoid littering in the first place, but also to play an active role in helping protect and maintain the stunning views and rich landscapes that make Georgia the heart of the South. As the campaign states: We don’t litter here, and we’re making that known.

“Georgia's roads are the gateway to our state for visitors and residents alike,” said Georgia DOT Director of Strategic Communications Scott Higley. "We partnered with national and state organizations focused on eliminating litter to increase awareness of the Keep It Clean Georgia campaign as a way to motivate Georgians – and those visiting the Peach State – to not only avoid littering in the first place, but also understand how they can play a role in fighting litter across Georgia." 

In support of the campaign, Georgia DOT created a Keep It Clean Georgia website, providing a library of original print and visual content, as well as a Digital Partner Toolkit to assist key partners and stakeholders in furthering the message of Keep It Clean Georgia within their communities. 

The TransComm annual Skills Awards competition is considered a premier competition in the transportation industry and has become a standard in communication excellence among state departments of transportation. Winners demonstrate the very best examples of innovation, planning, production, execution, and evaluation of results and budget. Georgia DOT last won the Excel Award in 2020 for its education curriculum "Recognizing the Risk" developed in partnership with Scholastic, Inc. 

For more information about this award-winning program, visit Keep It Clean Georgia.