In this issue:
- Butt FREE Events
- 'Not a Good Look' website: pledges encourage ashtray use
- 'Not a Good Look' resources are 'hot'
- Butt litterers - a closer look
- Keep Australia Beautiful - National Litter Index
- QLPA appoints new Chair
- Butt Free Australia turns one year old
- Holiday period office closure
Butt FREE Events
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Approaching the holiday season, Butt Free Australia has been contacted by a number of large music festivals seeking support for butt litter prevention. Island Vibe (Stradbroke Island, QLD), Caloundra Music Festival (QLD), Splendour in the Grass (QLD) and Stonefest (ACT) each recently chose to implement designated smoking areas in which they placed cigarette butt bins to manage littering. They used Butt FREE banners to highlight the presence of the bins and provide the “Please butt it, then bin it®” call to action. While each festival worked to discourage littering across their sites, they all identified needs to better highlight and manage use of these designated areas to contain potential littering within them. Butt FREE banners were used in Melbourne on the 20-21 November for the well attended Johnson Street latin dance Fiesta. Local council, the City of Yarra, provided two large butt bins to which the banners helped draw attention. They also collected pledges in exchange for personal ashtrays. The sold out Foreshore festival held on 27 November, on the East and West Lawns of Parliament House, Canberra, included the Butt FREE approach as part of their aim to reduce the environmental footprint of the festival. The festival’s ‘Green Keeper’ educational team handed out personal ashtrays, and large beach balls thrown into the crowds helped deliver the ‘Not a Good Look’ message. |
‘Not a Good Look’ website: pledges encourage ashtray use
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Since the 17 May launch of the ‘Not a Good Look’ website, over 11,500 personal ashtrays have been posted to homes and businesses across Australia as part of the campaign’s educational focus on smokers taking personal responsibility for butt litter. The website talks to both litterers and non-litterers about how they and Butt Free Australia can help prevent butt littering. One of these ways includes sending a free ashtray to themselves or someone they know, in exchange for a pledge that they would use it or encourage its use. The site addresses common excuses heard by litterers and explains three serious impacts litter has socially and environmentally. The site has seen over 22,500 unique visitors from within Australia, with peaks as high as 2,800 visitors during one day, experienced during the Butt FREE City campaign in May. Throughout November a peak in messages of support and thanks were posted through the site, some examples of which are highlighted below: “This is great we smoke outside of work and it is horrible to see all the butts on the ground what a great idea to give personal ashtrays one small step toward helping a huge problem good on you” “Thanks for this generous idea! I now have no excuses to flick my butt around.” “Good idea” “It’s fantastic! What a great way to stop butts on the ground!” Visit: www.notagoodlook.com.au |
'Not a Good Look’ resources are ‘hot’
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Councils, business, clubs and organisations have been spreading the ‘Not a Good Look’ message across Australia using campaign resources freely available, such as posters, fact sheets and web tiles linking to the website. Over 900 A3 posters and 1200 DL flyers have been requested directly from the Butt Free Australia office and almost 300 posters,100 fact sheets and over 500 state litter reporting information sheets downloaded from the ‘Not a Good Look’ site. A number of Councils have used the resources in support of their own butt litter prevention campaigns. For example, Frankston City Council (VIC) recently launched the 'Find a Bin for your Butt' campaign. They placed a collection of butts over a week in a giant glass jar and displayed it in a local shop front along with ‘Not a Good Look’ posters. Local businesses also lent support by displaying posters and making personal ashtrays freely available. Find the campaign resources here: http://www.buttfree.org.au/resources/resource-kits.html Removable vinyl A3 campaign posters are now available on request! Use them for outdoor areas or where they can be positioned for long periods of time. They don’t leave a residue, are easy to apply, and will stick to most flat surfaces. |
Butt litterers – a closer look
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Butt Free Australia’s latest research, conducted Sept/Oct 2010, has given further insight into the previously identified ‘Apologist’, ‘Rationalist’ and ‘Defensive’ attitude types of butt litterers, and the potential impact of the ‘Not a Good Look’ campaign. The quantitative and qualitative research methods (including an innovative 5-day interactive blog), provided in-depth and candid feedback from almost 700 participants throughout metro and regional Australia. Since the preliminary study on attitudes and perceptions of butt litterers conducted in 2009, the target audience of Rationalists has shown an approximate 10% improvement in attitude toward butt litter’s impact on the environment. How litterers perceive butt litter as a social unacceptable behaviour, and how they think it should be dealt with, varied greatly between individuals. For most however, the issue of butt littering remains relatively low on the scale of being an important issue, or one of personal responsibility. Suggesting people generally understood and related to the ‘Not a Good Look’ campaign, ‘relevance’ and ‘believability’ ratings rated very highly, almost double those of commercial product campaigns. High prompted recall of the slogan, at 59%, suggested it has also been memorable. Of great interest was the potential influence on behaviour change with 76% of litterers responding positively to the statement “[the Not a Good Look campaign] made me more likely to dispose of my cigarette butt correctly”. The comprehensive and encouraging results of this research will help further target and extend the ‘Not a Good Look’ campaign throughout 2011. Further details of the research results, will be posted to our website in the New Year. |
Keep Australia Beautiful – National Litter Index
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Cigarette butts remain just under half of all items found in the litter stream according to the 2009/10 National Litter Index (NLI) released late September, by Keep Australia Beautiful National. Butts increased slightly in 2009/10 to 32 items per 1000m² (from 30 in 2008/09), while the overall number of littered items increased from 63 to 66. “Overall there is a downward trend in butt litter,” explains Butt Free Australia CEO, Wendy Jones. “In the 2006/07 NLI cigarette butts were at 35 per 1000m² and some encouraging figures for South Australia (21), Victoria (25) and the ACT (27) show long term reductions. Unfortunately the news is less encouraging for the NT and Tasmania and we recognise that a widespread problem with butt litter remains across the country. Our Not a Good Look campaign aims to tackle this public issue nationally and we continue to work at a public level with local, state and territory governments, land and facility managers, business owners and community groups.” For more information on the NLI visit: http://www.kab.org.au/litter-research/what-we-do/national-litter-index/ |
QLPA appoints new Chair
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Butt Free Australia congratulates Cerran Fawns, CEO of Maroochy Water Watch, on her recent appointment as Chair of the Queensland Litter Prevention Alliance (QLPA). Cerran’s appointment, along with that of a new Vice-Chair Gary Dolton (Sunshine Coast Regional Council), was made at the Alliance’s November AGM in Brisbane, attended by Butt Free Australia’s CEO Wendy Jones. The QLPA noted the resignation of Leisa Gillham as Litter Officer. Leisa has worked with great passion for the role, and in particular on Butt FREE Events across the state, and we wish her well in future pursuits. The QLPA group agreed that newly appointed Secretary of the Alliance, Tara Kingsbury (Clean Up Campaign Coordinator, SE Healthy Waterways Partnership), would take on the role of Litter Officer in the interim. For QLPA enquiries, please contact Tara Kinsgbury: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it |
Butt Free Australia turns one year old
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Butt Free Australia (formerly Butt Littering Trust) celebrates the first anniversary of its new trading name in December 2010. The new name and website www.buttfree.org.au has certainly strengthened its position as Australia’s leading advocate in butt litter management. |
Holiday Period Office Closure
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The Butt Free Australia office will close from 3pm, 23 December and re-open, 9am on 10 January 2011. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all! Butt Free Australia Board and Staff |
Butt Free Bulletin - November