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These are just some of the questions the city’s smokers will be asked to answer over the next month, in a new campaign designed to stop them from throwing cigarette butts on the ground.
In an effort to highlight the continuing problem of cigarette butts – which make up 43 per cent of all littered items in Australia – Keep Australia Beautiful has embarked on a new “vote with your butts” campaign.
Bright yellow “ballot bins” have been installed at North Wollongong beach, WIN Entertainment Centre and Crown Street Mall where smokers will be encouraged “vote”, with the results displayed through clear plastic panels.
Keep Australia Beautiful communications manager Alice Morgan said the campaign was an effort to “gamify” the process of throwing away cigarette butts.
“It uses a budging behaviour change mechanism and is a fun way to get engaged in putting your butt in a bin rather than just stubbing it out and not ever thinking about it,” she said.
“The questions are designed to attract engagement and keep people’s interest.”
About 20 million cigarette butts are littered in Australia every day, totaling seven billion per year.
The ‘ballot bins’ will be in place in Wollongong until September 30.
Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
