Do you remember our Blitz The Butts day last year when 16 volunteers collected nearly 5kg of soggy cigarette butts on the streets of Swanage? There is no doubt there would have been many more if the overnight rain hadn’t already washed them down the drains.
This smelly mess is now on display at Swanage Information Centre before it goes on tour around other parts of Dorset. Please come and check it out and support our Bin Your Butt campaign.
Cigarette butts are the most commonly found form of ocean litter, and in 2014 the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup initiative (ICC) volunteers collected 2m of them.
Discarded cigarette butts are non-biodegradable and they are also the most common form of litter found in beach clean ups. It is estimated that around 4 trillion cigarette ends are discarded across the world each year.
As well as being unsightly, cigarette butts are a toxic contaminant, which leach numerous chemicals including heavy metals, nicotine and ethylphenol in water. Discarded butts pose a threat to animals and people, particularly young children if ingested, which is not uncommon.
Source: ASH Fact Sheet on Tobacco and the environment www.ash.org.uk