Butt Free Australia recognises and acknowledges the many excellent organisations and initiatives in place to deal with smoking-related health issues and encouraging people to quit. In no way do we, nor will we, attempt to interfere with or undermine their work.
It is a known fact that serious health risks are linked to cigarette smoking. This is openly acknowledged by Butt Free Australia's major funder, British American Tobacco Australia, and the broader tobacco industry.
As a product stewardship organisation Butt Free Australia exists only because cigarette butt littering will continue to be a serious environmental problem in Australia as long as smoking remains legal. Our sole focus is management of the environmental consequences of careless cigarette butt disposal.
Butt Free Australia has nevertheless been accused of actively encouraging smoking by distributing personal ashtrays during awareness campaigns.
We question the logic of this belief, which we see as akin to claiming that seat belts in cars encourage reckless driving or rubbish bins encourage the consumption of fast food.
Giving personal ashtrays to adults who are going to smoke anyway is merely equipping them with a responsible option for disposal of their cigarette butts.
We also question the belief that encouraging smokers to quit is the best and only way to eradicate cigarette butt littering.
Even if it were possible to eliminate smoking completely, the environmental impact of butt litter is too damaging to ignore in the meantime.
Butt Free Australia's strategy is to influence behavioural change by educating the whole community about the environmental consequences of cigarette butt littering.
Our ultimate goal will be reached when butt littering is widely seen as socially unacceptable behaviour and "butting it and binning it" has become the norm.
