News & Events

Bin Your Butt! Ferndown
Posted : September 27, 2017

#BinYourButt! is launching in three locations across Dorset this month. It’s a new campaign focusing on cigarette butts by Litter Free Dorset. The campaign asks people to use appropriate street bins, wall-mounted cigarette bins or a portable “stubby bin” to help achieve a Litter Free Dorset. The campaign launch in Ferndown on 26^th September was the debut for the giant cigarette butts to highlight the issue of cigarette litter.

Charlie Wild, Litter Free Dorset Project Officer, explains; “Cigarette related litter is also known as ‘micro-litter’ as the stubs are small and often overlooked when compared to other items such as plastic bottles, and can be camouflaged against autumnal leaves . This makes it easy for people to take no notice of them.”

Local businesses in Ferndown town centre have been approached to get involved. Businesses are doing their bit to help by displaying posters, having bins for smokers available and handing out personal stubby packs – a small pouch that holds cigarette butts until you can find a suitable bin. Charlie Wild explains the aim of this campaign; “We hope to get people talking about what happens to their cigarette litter and to be sure to ‘#BinYourButt’. Our baseline audit in Ferndown found 679 cigarette butts down the main high street. When you start to look for them, you see them all over the place – we want to get this number down.”

Did you know that:

• cigarette filters don’t degrade or dissolve – they contain plastic which never disappears and a lot of chemicals?
• cigarette butts dropped or washed down street drains can flow directly to the river or sea with no interception?
• clean up costs – you can help save Dorset money by using the bin

Litter Free Dorset is made up of a group of local organisations, charities and community groups. They all work together to reduce the social, economic and environmental impacts of litter. The Litter Free Dorset team are all very grateful to everyone who has come together already to support the campaign including the Dorset Waste Partnership, Cllr. Steve Lugg, Ferndown Town Council, Ferndown BID and the Royal British Legion.

Cigarette butt litter is something that often gets swept under the carpet, but is a big issue, despite its size. Cllr. Lugg, resident of Ferndown and avid anti-litter campaigner explains; “Did you know a third of all litter is cigarette butts?  And that the tiny plastic fibres inside are non-biodegradable.  We need to work with smokers to get our butts picked up.  Please help us, and help our community in eradicating this rubbish.”

The Dorset wide #BINYOURBUTT campaign has kicked off in Dorchester with the Higher or Lower game – each week signs are updated with the number of cigarette butts that are dropped and have been swept up by the Keeper of the Walks, and can show an increase or hopefully decrease, in the numbers dropped. The campaign will finally be making its way to Swanage with some innovative ways of tackling this litter issue. Keep your eyes peeled to see how the campaigns are going!

If any Ferndown business wishes to support the campaign, then please get in touch at litterfreedorset@dorsetcc.gov.uk . You can follow the #BINYOURBUTT campaign by finding Litter Free Dorset on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Use the hashtag #BINYOURBUTT

Photo Credit Tom Scrase

Tags: Litter Free Dorset