Plastic Butts
Did you know cigarette butts are made from plastic? Surprised to hear this? Turns out you’re not alone – only 1 in 4 people currently know this, according to new polling of over 3,000 smokers and non-smokers by Censuswide.
Linked to this, Hubbub polling also suggests that 57% of smokers who do know that butts and filters contain plastic are more likely to look for an ashtray nearby while 50% would hold on to their cigarettes for longer (Hubbub, 2022). Hooray!
In light of the above, we took to the streets surrounding Stratford Station, the busiest train station in the UK, with eye catching interventions to spread the message that butts contain plastics in a bid to stub out our butt littering culture.
A flickin’ decent sized problem
Cigarette butts are the most common form of litter in the world but despite this, they’re often overlooked – many of us have even stopped noticing them. We naturally tend to focus on solving problems that are highly visible. Plastic bottles and bags – yep, we need to cut down on those. Coffee cups – hmm, we should do something about those too. Cigarette butts? Meh. Out of sight, out of mind. Right? Unfortunately not.
It’s estimated that of the 6.5 trillion cigarettes smoked every year, only about a third make it into a bin. (National Geographic, 2019) Those that don’t end up just about everywhere else and leach harmful chemicals into the environment and take up to a decade to break down into microplastics, where they are less visible but still harmful.
Our approach
We popped up at Stratford Station, the UK’s busiest railway station with one aim: to make cigarette litter “seen”, raising awareness of the widely unknown fact that cigarette butts are made from plastic. We believe that if people are aware of the facts, solutions to the problem of cigarette litter will emerge. It so happens that we already invented a pretty nifty solution: the Ballot Bin. We launched our customisable voting ashtray back in 2016 and it’s proven to reduce litter by up to 73% (Ellipsis Earth, 2021).
Billboards, newspaper stands, a seaside picture board, “talking butts” and a one-off giant version of our iconic Ballot Bin were enlisted to catch the attention of passers-by and spread the message of the plastic content of cigarette butts.
Photos of the campaign in action.
The impact
The aim of this campaign was awareness and reach:
Media engagement: 14 pieces of coverage with opportunities to hear and see of over 21 million.
Social media reach: over 250,000 across all Hubbub channels (not including amplifiers).
On-the-ground reach: 340,000-400,000 people.
On-site polling: there was an increase from 25% to 75% in the number of passers-by who knew cigarette butts were made from plastic.
Really though, to tackle the problem of cigarette litter, we need at least three things:
More cigarette bins in key hotspots: 55% and 51% of smokers respectively say there should be more ashtrays at bus stops and at taxi ranks/outside supermarkets.
Littering cigarette butts needs to become socially unacceptable – just like dropping a plastic bottle in the street is. We hope that more smokers and non-smokers alike knowing about #PlasticButts will spur a change in social attitude.
More smokers need to bin their butts or take them home with them, because – as widespread as our Ballot Bins may be – there won’t always be an ashtray available.
Get involved
Interested in rolling out this campaign in your area? Download our #PlasticButts assets here
Want some cigarette binspiration? Check out our Ballot Bins here
