No butts about it

WITH an estimated seven million cigarette butts flicked away annually in Australia, Lismore City Council has taken the butt by the teeth.

Lismore mayor Jenny Dowell and the council's customer services officer, Sheree Casey, encourage people to grab a free portable butt bin from council's offices as part of the National Butt Free Day awareness campaign.

WITH an estimated seven million cigarette butts flicked away annually in Australia, Lismore City Council has taken the butt by the teeth so-to-speak to protect the environment.

Joining a new awareness campaign, National Butt Free Day, the council hopes to reduce the number of wayward butts that end up on our streets and in our waterways.

To put that number in perspective, the nation's discarded butts could fill the MCG to a depth of over half a metre at least 20 times!

Lismore mayor Jenny Dowell and Lismore City Council staff have signed up for the first National Butt Free Day next Thursday to spread the word about the dangers of butts being tossed away and promote easy solutions.

Lismore City Council has 25 butt bins in the CBD and seven at Lismore Shopping Square plus smokers can pick up portable butt bins at Council's Goonellabah and CBD offices to carry with them for convenience.

"Butts make our city look untidy and they damage our environment. They don't disintegrate so they wash into our river through stormwater drains. If you're a smoker and can't give up for your own health, think about our river's health and bin your butt," said Cr Dowell.

Cigarette butts are in fact Australia's most littered item, consistently recorded by Keep Australia Beautiful as being around 50% of the total number of items littered nationally every year.

The size of cigarette butts compared to larger litter items belies the impact of this widespread problem.

Butt littering impacts include waterways pollution, degradation of wildlife habitat and health (turtles can swallow them!), substantial yet largely avoidable daily costs in cleaning up, and various other social, environmental and economic impacts.

And of course, they just look plain ugly.

Cr Dowell encourages smokers to join in National Butt Free Day on Thursday and make the commitment to be a responsible smoker.

Portable butt bins are available free from Council's offices at 43 Oliver Avenue, Goonellabah, or at 55 Magellan Street, Lismore.

Originally published as No butts about it