Local company provides an ideal solution to help South Africa clean up cigarette butts.

Cigarette butt litter is on the increase and fast becoming a major problem on South African Streets.

When the South African authorities strengthened and passed a new tobacco and smoking law, little did they know they were creating another hazard: the needless disposal of cigarette butts, propelled mainly by the absence of public ashtrays.

When smokers toss away cigarette butts onto street pavements or out into the open landscape, little do they know how much damage that can inflict onto the local environment. Apart from harm to the environment, many young children tend to experiment with smoking on cigarette butts which makes it all the more important to dispose them away properly.

Many smokers do not see cigarette butts as a major problem because of their small size. Some smokers consider putting a cigarette out on the ground as a safe method of disposal as opposed to putting the cigarette butt in an ashtray which may indeed cause a fire.

Besides being a danger to the local environment, the cigarette butts are certainly becoming a common accepted eyesore on the streets of South Africa and more importantly entrances to public shopping centres, office blocks, restaurants and bars.

Of course, many smokers innocently throw away cigarettes with the assurance that the city cleaning department will come around and do the cleaning. And because of its small size, a cigarette butt may seem pretty innocuous. However, if not properly discarded a cigarette butt can pose a heavy toll on the environment.

Cigarette butts are not biodegradable due to the cellulose acetate, a type of plastic in the filters, and can take 10 to 15 years to break down in the environment. Because of their small size, cigarette butts can get tossed about with the wind and can end up stuck in places that city cleaning services may not be able to reach.  Cigarette butts also leach toxic chemicals into the water and soil as they corrode into tiny plastic powder.

To make matters worse, cigarette butts can be washed away into water supply systems and the seas where they are mistaken for food by birds, fish and other creatures causing digestive problems and making them ingest toxic chemicals like arsenic, cyanide, hydrogen, cadmium and lead from filters.

In many parts of the world, discarded cigarette butts have been the cause of many big fires that have destroyed huge chucks of flora and fauna. Many of these fires have also destroyed people’s homes as well as businesses.

In South Africa, an environmental campaign to inform and educate smokers about the need for better disposal of cigarette butts will certainly go a long way in both keeping the streets tidy and protecting the environment. Smokers should be encouraged to dispose of their cigarette ends responsibly.

But more importantly, the South African authorities must provide public ashtrays to reduce the amount of cigarette butts that end up on the streets.

One local company in South Africa has taken up the challenge to solve to disposal of cigarette butts outdoors and is successfully doing so.

The company Ash n Ad supplies cigarette ashtrays to properties and businesses to help comply with legislation related to South Africa’s new smoking ban. With millions of smokers now heading outdoors to smoke, this has lead to an increase in smoking related litter – primarily discarded butts. This confirms that there is a demand from both the smoker and property owner to install and use the Ashtrays available.

Local council also see the value of the ashtrays as a way to help reduce litter on our pavements too.

For more information about Ash n Ad and how you can order your own ashtray. Please visit www.ashnad.co.za. Put your butt into it and lets keep South Africa Tidy.