Bin Your Butt campaign gathers momentum in Ferndown

Ferndown was recently identified as one of the areas where the largest amount of cigarette litter has been found and Litter Free Dorset brought its Bin Your Butt campaign to the town centre to encourage smokers to deposit their used cigarette butts in bins, rather than drop them as litter on the ground.

Joining Litter Free Dorset at their stand was Cllr Steve Lugg dressed up as a cigarette butt, the town crier, Mike Andrews, who rang out the news and Stuart Fleetham representing Ferndown Chamber of Commerce. All were helping to spread the word: if you smoke, please bin your butt.

Cigarette butts are one of the most commonly collected bits of litter within the UK. Due to their small size, people don’t often think of them as litter. Not only are cigarette butts unsightly, but the filters also contain plastic fibres; if they make their way down the drains, it means they stick around once in the sea and can take between 18 months to 10 years to decompose.

Free posters and stubby packs for smokers for their used cigarette butts were being handed out at the campaign stall.