On Saturday 15th, in the last weekend cleaning appointment of the first semester of 2024 activity for Novara Green, the volunteers returned to the streets of the center to collect cigarette butts. The balance of an hour’s work: 1 kilo and 100 grams of abandoned cigarette butts.
«In the space of 60 minutes a motivated volunteer can collect about a couple of ounces of cigarette butts in various stages of degradation with his tongs – explains the president of Novara Green Fabrizio Cerri – To give a concrete example, an hour of collection done well means scanning and cleaning up the pedestrian area which, starting from Piazza Puccini, goes up Via Fratelli Rosselli and ends at the traffic lights in Piazza Martiri, including the porticoes and excluding Piazza Martiri. The pliers are essential because the butts get stuck between the cubes of the pavé and in the edges of the granite slabs of the porticoes, and it is not always easy to remove them”.
Since July 2019, cigarette butts have been recognized as real waste by the National Register of Environmental Managers. Furthermore, these are dangerous residues: each filter contains numerous chemical substances, many of which are toxic, and each butt contains plastic materials which, over the 12 years necessary for their degradation, transform into microplastics, pollute rivers and seas, they are ingested by fish and birds.
«If we consider the hypothesis of regular cleaning of the entire area of the historic center, not only in the shopping areas but also in the side streets – adds Cerri – it would be necessary every time to have a not small number of people, moreover all physically well trained to withstand the fatigue of constantly getting down and getting up. It is clear that the real solution to this problem is another: cigarette butts should simply not be thrown on the ground, but collected in ashtrays, be they street ones or portable pocket ones. It is not just a question of the decorum of the city, but of civic education, respect for the environment, attention to our health and that of the planet.”
Each cleaning is carried out in coordination with Assa, who indicates to the Novara Green volunteers the collection point of the bags and subsequently takes care of their disposal.
