The Butt Blitz
On a mission to keep cigarette butts out of the environment
What is the Butt Blitz?
4.1 MILLION CIGARETTE BUTTS
PICKED UP TO DATE
Cigarette butts account for 1 in 5 pieces of litter we find at our shoreline cleanups. In 2015, we ran our first-ever Butt Blitz — an action-oriented campaign focused on raising public awareness about cigarette litter, while simultaneously removing as much of it from the environment as possible.
Each spring, volunteers from across Canada pick up cigarette butts in their local communities, then send them to TerraCycle Canada for recycling. We hope to prevent future littering by raising awareness of the negative impacts that cigarette butt litter has on ecosystems and health.
See Our Progress
2023 Butt Blitz Summary Report
Media
Press Articles
Things to Know TO Butt Blitz Toronto
Global News Hamilton’s one-day “Butt Blitz” takes 37,000 cigarette remains off city streets
CBC News City wants you to stop tossing your cigarette butts on the street
The Hamilton Spectator Volunteers collect 37,052 cigarette butts during Hamilton cleanup event
CHCH Butt Blitz aims to clean up cigarette butts off the ground
Simcoe.com How Butt Blitz aims to give Barrie a greener future
Articles
Thank You to Our Partners
Butt Blitz Land Acknowledgment
A Greener Future looks to Indigenous groups as the original caretakers of the land and we follow in their footsteps as we engage in litter cleanups focused on commercial tobacco products. We recognize many Indigenous peoples have historically used and continue to use tobacco products as medicines and for ceremonial purposes. The National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health reminds us that tobacco holds spiritual significance for many Indigenous peoples and “was traditionally used during sacred ceremonies and prayer to give thanks to the Creator and Mother Earth, to communicate with the spirits, and to purify the mind and heal the body” [1].
Today, however, the misuse of commercial tobacco products is posing a threat to the environment and health of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Tobacco misuse involves the non-traditional, recreational, and/or habitual use of tobacco products like cigarettes [1]. These commercial products contain plastic filters and cannot biodegrade; rather, cigarette butts can last for decades in our ecosystems. Throughout our Butt Blitz campaign, A Greener Future volunteers will be primarily interacting with these commercial tobacco products littered in the environment. In fact, cigarette butts are the most commonly littered item on earth and make up over 84% of the total pieces of litter AGF has collected to date [2].
Our Butt Blitz campaign has participants in 20+ locations across the land that is now called Canada and all cleanups take place on traditional territories of First Nation, Métis, and Inuit groups. As such, we strongly encourage all volunteers to research the history of the stolen land upon which they will be participating and work to actively decolonize their interactions with the environment and tobacco. As an organization, we recognize that all forms of environmental activism must also be intersectional and justice-oriented. We hope all participants look to Indigenous peoples as leaders in environmental stewardship and continue expanding their knowledge beyond this initial land recognition.
Source(s):
[1] https://www.nccih.ca/docs/health/FS-Tobacco-EN.pdf
[2] AGF Data Bank - https://www.agreenerfuture.ca/cigarette-butt-data