In March, Darwin City Council mounted a local campaign during ‘Butt Free City Week’ to help combat the seven billion cigarette butts littered in Australia every year. Butt Free City is organised nationally by the Butt Littering Trust, with Councils encouraged to sign up and join the campaign. Darwin is one of nine project partners already recruited for 2006.
Council’s Butt Free City – Please Butt It, then Bin ItTM campaign aims to encourage smokers to be more concerned about how they dispose of their butts. Information cards and personal ashtrays were handed out to smokers around the City’s butt ‘hot spots’. A team of people also approached smokers and asked them for their pledge in improving the City’s amenity and to reduce the impact of littering on the environment.
Darwin aimed to achieve 1,000 of the 10,000 pledges sought nationally.
“Butts are small, but when they are at the top of Clean Up Australia’s pick up list every year, you get an idea of the environmental degradation caused when they find their way into our waterways through drains,” said Darwin Lord Mayor, Peter Adamson. “We wouldn’t dream of throwing butts into our own swimming pools and yet they are unleashed into our waterways and habitats everyday.
“While we can impose on the spot fines of $50 for littering, we would much rather encourage smokers to make sure they understand the benefits to the environment of modifying their behaviour.
“Research shows that many people are not aware that butts are litter. I urge smokers to do the environment and the City a favour and please butt it and then bin it.”
Last year 30 butt bins were installed around Darwin. A further 30 butt bins have been installed this year in the City’s butt hot spots which include foreshore and boat ramp areas.
As a result of last year’s campaign, Darwin achieved a 32.7 per cent reduction in butt littering, compared with the national average of just 9.9 percent.
For further information contact Judie Brennan, Darwin’s Public Affairs, on (08) 8930 0516.
