Did you know 7.2 billion cigarette butts are littered in Australia every year? And in NSW, cigarette butts make up 50 per cent of all littered items. The smoking zone near Mars Creek is undergoing a trial of new Ballot Bins to encourage staff and students to dispose of cigarettes responsibly.
Who would win in a fight – a Kangaroo or an Emu?
You’ll find this question now featured on the new Ballot Bins intended to motivate staff and students to consider the impact their cigarette butts have on the environment. The user ‘votes’ by choosing one of two slots to dispose of their cigarette butt, and a public opinion poll is generated as old butts pile up on either side.
The trial has been organised in conjunction with Keep Victoria Beautiful by MQ Sustainability PACE student Kerstin Siegmund who was able to use her human geography and environmental management knowledge to identify and create innovative successful solutions to the issue. In a survey of Macquarie University staff and students about the awareness of environmental impact of cigarette litter, there was a general lack of understanding with one respondent stating: “smokers do not view their butts as litter in the way they see papers, wrappers, cans, bottles and other items as litter”.
Kerstin felt that the voting ashtrays would jolt people out of their normal littering routine and create a positive impact on the local environment around the smoking zone. Designed by environmental charity Hubbub, the ballot bins have been tested in the UK with a 46 per cent reduction in cigarette butt litter in smoking areas.
“The idea is that the ballot bins are engaging rather than just functional, and create awareness of the litter issue associated with cigarette butts” said Kerstin.
Did you know?
- Cigarette filters are composed of cellulose acetate – a plastic
- Cigarette butts take up to 12 months to decompose in fresh water, and up to five years in seawater
- Wildlife is harmed through accidental ingestion of cigarette litter
- Toxic chemicals can leach from cigarette butts into waterways
- NSW cigarette litter fines range from $80 to $450
- Butts remain a fire hazard as they can smoulder for up to three hours after being dropped.
Do you have a burning question? Propose a Ballot Bin Poll by emailing the Sustainability team.
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Where can I organize to get one of these for a festival. Would be ace if I could get In contact with the organizers of this invention.
Contact details for the Ballot Bin can be found on their website: https://ballotbin.co.uk/
I think this is a great initiative. Anything to reduce litter is a good thing be it a gimmick or not. Also, 5 years ago around 10% of employees in our department were smokers. That figure would now be around 2%. Great to see this downward trend.
Perhaps we could have ashtrays like a photo my friend just sent me. Wish I could upload the pic… but basically they are small coffin shaped ashtrays (even has small handles along the sides) half filled with sand on a coffin stand type of thing 😀
How about putting one at the entrance to the carpark opposite the Library? It is DISGUSTING – a stinking carpet of butts. And there are bins RIGHT THERE!!
Bin your butts, please, even if it’s not disguised as an opinion poll!
I’m concerned that smokers are being asked to participate in a game in order to ‘do the right thing’.
I’m happy to see a better waste bin for them to put their garbage, but smoking should not be trivialised with playing voting games. And also I see it as encouraging more smoking to let the ‘Kangaroo team’ or ‘Emu team’ win.
Just a plain simple bin would be better along with Quitline numbers to encourage them to quit this deadly habit that affects everyone through passive smoking. It would be also helpful to have Security ensure that smokers remain in the zone and not spread themselves all across the grassy area near Wally’s Walk. The sooner the campus is smoke free the better!!
This is a great innovation for the lazy people who care to litter.
Can we have about 100+ of the boxes placed next to the rubbish bins in the “non-smoking” car parks especially C 3 and E1A ?
And what another great example of a PACE project!
I saw this the other day walking past outside the old library (MUSE) – yet another fantastic initiative from our Sustainability team to keep it ‘green and clean,’ and great to see them actually being used. If I smoked, I would vote Emu… they know what they did…
It is like anything, most responsible smokers do the right thing and put it in the bin.
It is those smokers that don’t who give us a bad name. Those are the ones we need to educate.
This is a good initiative, would much prefer that the butts go in a bin rather than onto the ground and pollute the environment. Maybe another bin should be placed in the carparks near the library – lots of smokers there that could vote with their butts based on the number of them littered near the staircases on all levels.
Great idea! good initiative. Its a pity that they smoke in the first place. Let alone pollute the planet, they are causing damage to themselves. Hope MQ becomes a fully non-smoking campus in the near future
Excellent initiative. The ash trays that were there were not up to the task. I have noticed already that more people are using the ash trays and the area looks better for it.