As part of Car Free Day in Vancouver on Sunday, one group wanted to see if they could get people to pick up and return cigarette butts in exchange for money.
Just like a bottle return program.
The West End Cleanup group decided to offer one penny for every butt returned. That translated into $20 for every one pound of butts turned in. It took the group three hours to burn through their $500 budget.
52,000 butts were collected in total.
But the bigger province-wide plan is to see smokers pay a dollar per deposit per pack, and the money would be reimbursed when the cigarette butts are returned.
“If they feel like they don’t want their money back, this is not a tax, this is a returnable thing, they’re free to litter, and then what I propose would be one cent per butt picked up by whoever is interested in picking that up,” said Dr. Stuart Kreisman, an endocrinologist at St. Paul’s Hospital and founder of the Cigarette Deposit Commmittee.
“Once you put a value on cigarette butts, littered or otherwise, they’re all going to disappear.”
In the greater Vancouver area five million cigarettes are smoked everyday, and it’s estimated, by the Cigarette Deposit Commmittee, that around one million butts are not disposed of properly.
The program is getting some traction and backing from local politicians.
“The rates of litter are staggering,” said Kreisman. “About one in three cigarette butts gets littered, is the statistic.”
He estimated about 13 per cent of Greater Vancouverites are smokers.
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