With the environmental campaign "The sea starts here" to mark International Water Day on March 22, 2024, the town of Norderney is drawing attention to an everyday and serious problem: the pollution of the oceans and the water cycle caused by improperly disposed cigarette butts.
Temporary spray-painted lettering next to or on manhole covers and street drains is intended to raise public awareness of the proper disposal of cigarette butts. The campaign is not only intended to sensitize the smoking population to this issue, but also to prevent environmental pollution caused by cigarette butts in the long term, thus enhancing the cityscape.
The sea begins here
The "The sea begins here" campaign is aimed directly at the polluters. Smokers should be made aware that gullies and street drains are not suitable places to dispose of cigarette butts with the eye-catching lettering directly on the spot. The visual, mental and emotional shifting of the border to the sea to one's own front door is intended to illustrate the direct influence of each individual on the environment, as every carelessly discarded cigarette pollutes 1,000 liters of water.
Butt filters are made of plastic
Cigarette filters are the most common form of marine litter. Around six trillion cigarettes are consumed worldwide every year. Most of them have a filter made of plastic (cellulose acetate).
However, many of these filters do not end up in the ashtray or garbage can after the cigarettes have been consumed, but are carelessly thrown into the environment. Disposal in street drains and gullies is particularly problematic, as the pollutants contained in the cigarette butts and the filters themselves cannot be removed or filtered out of the water. These substances enter the water cycle and ultimately end up in the sea, where they pose a threat to flora and fauna as well as to human health.
Proper disposal
There are numerous waste bins available for the proper and environmentally friendly disposal of cigarette butts, or ideally the specially installed outdoor ashtrays. The latter were recently installed at ten locations as part of the "No butts in the environment!" project.