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Cigarettes can take 15 years to break down, causing damage to marine life, whilst have the ability to enter the food chain as a microplastic and are considered to be a major contributor towards fires.
Knowing this, the No More Butts team are putting the final touches to a series of Big Butt Hunts, to be held across four different locations in North Queensland such as Innisfail, Ayr, Airlie beach and Mackay, this April to tidy up the region in an attempt to combat cigarette littering.
Mackay’s event will be held on Sunday 14th April at the Bluewater Lagoon, starting from 8.30am for an expected finish by 10am.
At the first event in 2022, more than a dozen volunteers picked up 4,500 butts in just under an hour. In 2023, 20 volunteers joined forces to comb the streets of Cairns for cigarette butts.
After one hour, volunteers from several different organisations and businesses had collected a total of 10,350 butts.
The success of this event saw two further events held in December 2023 in partnership with the Sea Shepherd Marine Debris Campaign, Rye, Victoria and Surfers Paradise played host to the groups, who picked up more than 14,000 butts.
Executive Director of No More Butts, Mr. Shannon Mead, said “partnering with councils, businesses, local rangers and other like-minded groups is having a great impact.
“Although our ultimate goal is to ban plastic cigarette filters, for now, we need to spend a lot of effort on education and prevention, as well as picking up these toxic nasty plastic parcels.”
Jumping into the “butt mobile” in April, No More Butts founder Mr. Shannon Mead will travel from Innisfail to Mackay to participate in the four events across two weekends.
Identifying hot spots, based on previous visits and community feedback, Mr. Mead is optimistic that others may join him in the hunt for as many butts as possible.
Although some essentials will be on hand, participants are encouraged to bring their own gloves, sunscreen, a hat and a water bottle.
Interested community members can learn more at https://bit.ly/nqldbh24 or at No More Butts on Facebook.
No More Butts have also been raising awareness of the issue that discarded vaping devices pose on our environment. Based in Queensland, Australia, No More Butts is a registered charity with ACNC.
