Star Trek the Animated Series wants you to Keep America Beautiful

In the not too distant past, litter was a real problem. I am not talking about the problem we have now with litter, but comically serious. People would toss stuff from moving cars, into oceans and rivers, you name it. Then in the 1960s and 1970s, a lot of effort went into trying to change people’s attitudes on littering and dumping. It was a good battle to fight and for the most part, it has been successful (it just took a while).

In the Seventies, which was a golden age for anti-littering PSAs, they created this amazing one using the talented people behind the Animated Star Trek Series. When I worked in a video store, and we sold and rented copies of this series, several hardcore fans would come in and talk of memories of these PSAs and their sadness at them not being released on VHS.

It took a few decades, but thanks to the internet, many things from the past have surfaced, including this very memorable anti-littering PSA from the Keep American Beautiful campaign. It is a brilliant example of some of the pioneering efforts that the studio, Filmation, put into animated PSAs.

Watch the Star Trek PSA

Now you will never look at the Rhombian Pollution Belt the same way again.