Littering behaviour (what, why and how people litter) and how to manage it differs according to where and in what 'context' it happens – and it's no different for butt littering.
Infrastructure and messages may therefore vary from context to context, but the call to action PLEASE BUTT IT, THEN BIN IT® always remains the same.
Experience consistently highlights the importance of context in conducting successful butt littering projects, and this is specifically addressed as one of our five Butt Free Solutions.
While Butt Free City is our flagship campaign, other Butt Free projects take into account a wide range of contexts, including some of the worst butt littering hotspots:
Butt Free Transport
Littering often occurs around transport facilities – where people are waiting at a bus stop or going to or from a station, for example. Transport projects involve a large, highly active and captive audience that is difficult to engage. Infrastructure considerations require liaison with both transport companies and local councils.
Butt Free Business
Business projects require liaison with property managers and business owners to ensure that not only is adequate infrastructure provided, but that staff are also engaged. The audience is usually either the individual smoker or small groups intent on socialising in a short space of time.
Butt Free Pubs n Clubs
Audiences at a pub or club may smoke on the footpath or in an on-site outdoor area as they socialise, drink and relax. Messages need to be highly engaging, even entertaining, to compete with other advertising, signage and activity in this space.
Butt Free Outdoor Dining
Engaging smokers while eating outdoors – at a restaurant, cafe or hotel, for example – involves a captive audience easily engaged using table-top education materials and infrastructure, such as windproof ashtrays. Outdoor dining projects require good partnerships with dining establishments and creative, unobtrusive design of materials.
Butt Free Shopping/Retail Centres
Here the focus is on littering at Centre entrances, in car parks and loading docks on privately owned property. Centre management and business owners are key partners. Including staff, suppliers and shoppers, the audience is captive and tends to visit regularly, so the focus on broader media is not as important as in other contexts. Thorough attention to infrastructure and face-to-face education are very important.
Butt Free Shopping/Business Districts
Shopping and business districts, and their streets, roads and footpaths are the focus of this context. The audiences here tend to be regular visitors, making any changes in littering behaviour easier to measure. Support from businesses for communication and infrastructure is key. Local government together with businesses from diverse sectors will be the main partners, along with media, community and other groups.
Butt Free Highway
Highways prove challenging due to vast areas and fast moving audiences. Engagement can be at areas where vehicles stop, or through roadside signage or radio advertising. Partners might be transport authorities responsible for roads, council groups and business owners.
Butt Free Beach
Beach projects convey a strong message about protecting the environment for all to enjoy. Engagement and measurement of campaign effectiveness can be different to some other contexts, however, as the audience is neither regular nor in great numbers. Infrastructure requires a focus on personal ashtrays and permanent butt bins.
Butt Free Natural Environment
In a natural environment context such as rivers, bays, national parks and natural attractions, projects convey a strong message about protecting the environment. This context is different to projects with messages about impacting the environment from urban areas – through stormwater for example. Natural environment contexts will engage a transient audience and diverse partnerships and may have a cross over with a tourism context.
Butt Free Tourism Destinations
Tourism destinations such as popular townships, gateways to natural environments and iconic regions are the focus of this context. Audiences are highly transient and timing of projects is critical. Measurement of changes in behaviour is difficult, but numbers provide a great opportunity to reach many people in a short time. Infrastructure is key in this context, as are wide and varied partnerships with Council, business, tour operators, hotels and transport.
Butt Free Event
Event projects, such as an outdoor festival in a park or a street fair, have audiences that are highly transient and active. The strong emphasis in this context is on infrastructure, rather than a focus on changing behaviour over time. Infrastructure must be highly visible and accessible, and the PLEASE BUTT IT, THEN BIN IT® call to action very clear.
Butt Free Venue
Venues such as sporting grounds and entertainment venues have transient audiences highly focused on what is happening. Projects can only engage with them over a short period of time, and the messages and infrastructure must be visible and accessible.
Read our Case Studies to see how Butt Free Solutions have been applied.
Go to our Project Archives to download a full copy of project reports.
Butt Free Projects 