Cigarette butts costing our local authorities on average £40 million per year to clean up, according to a report from July 2023.
Cigarette butts make up nearly two-thirds of litter in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP).
Litter Free Dorset launched a ‘Bin Your Butt’ campaign to encourage everyone to dispose of cigarettes responsibly.
BCP Councillor Andy Hadley, the portfolio holder for Climate Response, Environment and Energy, said: “I think we should ban smoking in public spaces.”
Mr Hadley said that over the last decade government have taken 40% of their budget.
Image sourced from Litter Free Dorset
If the council was not spending money on campaigns or cleaning up cigarette butts, they could reallocate this money to other services.
Danielle Rochford, mum of two living in Bournemouth, said: “I would like to see this money spent on repairing play areas to make them more enjoyable and safer for children.”
Keep Britain Tidy’s website states that “most smokers” often believe that cigarette butts are biodegradable.
The organisation’s research shows that each butt can take 14 years to breakdown, seeping toxic chemicals including arsenic, lead, nicotine and leaving behind microplastics.
The chemicals that are leached harm entire ecosystems, just one cigarette butt can contaminate 100 litres of water.
Photo taken by Cat Lindsay
Mr. Hadley “Our beaches are just filled with litter. I would like to campaign for more people to be responsible for their products and the supplier should take more responsibility for their waste part of the product.”
Statistics show a consistent decrease in smoking over the past 11 years, in 2011 20.2% of the population smoked, this dropped down to 12.9% in 2022.
Photo taken by Cat Lindsay
Rishi Sunak announced at the Conservative Party conference that the legal age of smoking would be raised every year.
Bianca Boiciuc, 19, a fast-food employee in Poole has smoked for two years as a result of stress and peer influence.
Bianca said: “I think he should take into consideration what makes people smoke cigarettes, it's never going to become obsolete until he gets to the root cause of the stressors people face to cause them to smoke, like with drug use, people still consume drugs, just in hidden areas, it's not obsolete.”
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