State smoking bans are failing as thousands of butts recovered from beach

STATE laws which ban smoking are a joke with volunteers removing thousands of cigarette butts from patrolled areas at the city’s best beaches.

banning / enforcing smoking law and littering in public, picture of Elisha Taylor and Matthew Ross, both from Responsible Runners Gold Coast.

STATE laws that ban ­smoking are a joke with ­volunteers removing thousands of cigarette butts from patrolled areas at the city’s best beaches.

The Responsible Runners group earlier this year began organising a handful of members to spend 30 minutes each weekend collecting trash at Burleigh beach and the Spit.
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At Burleigh on a Saturday and Sunday, runners collect between 200-300 butts in each session.

A data log for both beaches, which is being ­forwarded to a national marine protection foundation, reveals beachgoers have tossed out more than 16,000 cigarettes at Burleigh and the Spit since March this year.

Responsible Runners Gold coast spokesman Naomi Edwards, a Griffith University researcher, told the Bulletin: “It is just constant. We don’t want to be picking up these cigarettes. Smoking is bad for you, and this is horrific for the environment.

“Cigarette butts don’t break down.

“You have this toxin and poison leeching into the ­waterways.”

The council last month gave the foreshores a clean bill of health in terms of sand and safety but the beach litter log puts the spotlight of state health enforcement on the city’s most important tourist asset.

A Queensland Health spokesman said smoking had been prohibited at Queensland beaches since 2005 with the ban in place between the flags during ­patrol times.

The Bulletin has learned that the Gold Coast Public Health Unit in the past 12 months has no record of receiving any complaint about smoking between the flags and had no issued no fines.

In late 2006, surveillance was conducted on 39 Coast beaches where six people were found to be smoking.

The tourists received warnings and two infringement notices were issued.

In April 2013, 15 beaches were targeted and five people, again tourists, received warning notices.

Council officers issued $227 fines to more than 500 motorists caught littering in the past 12 months but no details are available on the suburban locations.

Cancer Council Queensland spokesman Katie Clift said that cigarette butts were the state’s worst litter item with the average number 20 per cent higher than the national average.