Cigarette butt littering in Melbourne

Cigarette butts are the most commonly found form of litter in Victoria, approximately 10,500 butts are tossed onto the streets every day. Cigarette butts are finding their way into our water, as cigarettes are filled with chemicals, they leech into the water and contaminate it. Eating cigarettes can make a human very sick, the same goes for animals.

Many attempts have been made by the government to clean up the streets, which have seen only small results. In city streets, sidewalks and even public parks, you’ll find cigarette butts everywhere, you may think people are making an effort to be lazy. The truth is, not many people want to live in a polluted world, but everyone struggles to correct their behaviour. Nobody is perfect all the time, but small imperfections lead to bigger ones. With almost 8 billion people living on earth, a lot of little problems coming together can become worldwide.

Cigarettes are not readily biodegradable; they stay for long periods of time. Cigarettes technically qualify as toxic waste, and whether you like it or not they’re in your water. This should be something everyone has a say on, it’s something that should be fought and not blindly accepted. If the whole community knew everything about the situation, it would not be possible to ignore it.

People should be readily informed about what’s happening on the planet they live on. Let people ask questions, let them form their own opinions and let them fight. We’ve fought for our happiness before and we can fight again with protest and activism, just because it seems hard doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

You may be fined if you’re seen littering, but that doesn’t stop people from doing it out of sight. People find a way to get around it, whether threatened with large fees or given a collective goal of making the world a better place. People are people, flaws and all, we can’t and shouldn’t fix that, but maybe something just slightly less crazy could give us a head start on this problem.

So, what’s the solution and how could it help?

Researchers at RMIT University in Australia proposed a new initiative to mix cigarette butts into asphalt. Take all the cigarette butts they can find and mix them into asphalt, turn a flaw into a strength. Why wouldn’t we use this? All of the toxins would stay in the road and we’d have an incredibly large-scale way to both get rid of cigarette butts and get larger amounts of asphalt cheaply.

There are roughly 7 billion cigarette butts littered in Melbourne every year, so there’s no shortage, but what if this number just keeps growing?

There’s no way to get every cigarette off the street or every smoker to be compliant, but we can restrain the amount of cigarettes being sold and offer more help (E.G addiction therapy, nicotine patches). Offer opportunities for people to seek help even in bad situations, add a reward for cleaning up large sums of cigarette butts. Help people help themselves. If every 7/11 stocked nicotine patches, it could help an incredibly large number of smokers, it’s common, it’s nearby, it’s plain convenient. This would be great encouragement for people.

To get through something like this it has to come into focus, we can’t be distracted and lose against cigarettes of all things. It’s very easy to ignore something when it’s not everywhere you go, and very hard to stop millions of addicted people from breaking another habit. One day in the future we’ll either be unable to turn back from our ignorance, or we’ll be thanking ourselves for not causing permanent damage.