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A trio of Australia’s leading environmentalists have lost patience with smokers, as more and more cigarette butts are entering our environment.

Founder of Planet Ark, Mr Jon Dee, Chair of the Butt Littering Trust, Mr Ian Coles and Chair of Keep Australia Beautiful, Mr Don Chambers are calling for:

• relevant authorities around Australia to create a minimum fine for butt littering, in excess of $400;

• all smokers to take responsibility for their littering and;

• local councils to more actively enforce litter laws (where they have them).

The group has demanded more accountability from smokers and called for the heavy fines following years of litter prevention campaigns. Research indicates that generally smokers do not recognise butts as litter.

Butts have again topped the Clean Up Australia Day list of most littered items, as it does every year.

The trio acknowledged the good work of some organisations, citing the recent Victorian State Government ‘Don’t be a tosser’ campaign, but outside of their own organisations little is being done to promote butt littering prevention.

“For us, this is really an issue of litter prevention, not picking the butts up or counting them after smokers have long gone. Smokers seem to presume somebody else will pick up their dirty work just as parents clean up after their kids and dogs,” said Jon Dee.

“Ratepayers should be absolutely outraged that they are footing the bill to clean up a totally avoidable mess.

“Not only does cigarette butt and cigarette packet littering spoil the amenity of a place, but when butts become waterborne they release their chemical payloads into the environment, which can take years to breakdown.

"Maybe the environment will be in much better shape with far less butt litter after some $400 fines are applied," concluded Jon Dee.

An estimated 7.2 billion butts enter the Australian environment every year, with a notable rise since smoking bans were introduced. The Butt Littering Trust runs an annual Butt Free City campaign, which starts next week (March 17 – 21). Educators will be taking to the streets in ten cities, to talk to smokers and encourage them to bin their butts, and to advise them of the environmental impact of flinging butts to the pavement.

Keep Australia Beautiful’s National Litter Index shows the depth of the problem. Over two years (2005 -2006, 2006 – 2007) butt litter has increased by 3% and cigarette packaging litter by 13%. "Cigarette butts make up 50% of all litter items counted - and with the smoking bans in hotels across the country, we are expecting a further increase in the next round of results. Greater diligence and new initiatives are required to address this growing litter problem," said Don Chambers.