New ‘Bin Your Butt’ campaign to clear up cigarette butts at our faculty
‘Bin Your Butt’
On Friday 24 May, the ‘Bin Your Butt’ campaign will be launched, aiming to fight plastic pollution at the KOG Building. Cigarette butts are a major pollutant found in the environment, but many people are unaware of just how harmful they really are. Cigarette filters are made from plastic and break down into microplastics. Cigarette butts release toxins into the ground and are harmful to plants and animals such as dogs, cats, fish and birds. However, simply clearing up the cigarette butts won’t prevent pollution. Each year, €250 million is spent on clearing up litter, and a staggering 32% of that litter is cigarette butts.
Our faculty is non-smoking, and we certainly don’t want to encourage people to smoke. However, the faculty does want to tackle the cigarette butt pollution caused by students who smoke off faculty premises.
Voting bins
The voting bins are our way of encouraging students to stop dropping their cigarette butts on the ground. Students can choose to throw their cigarette butts away in one of two options on the bins. For example: Leiden or The Hague? Yes or No to pineapple as a pizza topping? Minerva or Augustinus? If you’ve got a better suggestion for a question, please send it in! The questions will change every two weeks and students will be able to see their own questions on the voting bins.
More information is provided on the campaign page, where you can also submit your questions for the voting bin!
Campaign launch
On Friday 24 May at 14.00, the ‘Bin Your Butt’ campaign will be launched in front of the KOG Building. Our student assessor Hannah Saberi will be there to get the campaign off to a flying start in her own special way.