CIGARETTE BUTTS

From 1 July 2007, smoking in enclosed licensed premises will be banned throughout Victoria.

Under the Environment Protection Act 1970, discarding cigarette butts is a littering offence and fines may be issued.

Dropping a cigarette butt will receive a $110 fine, or $220 if the butt is still alight.

Butts and the Environment

• Cigarette butts are already the most littered item in Victoria, responsible for 56% of our total litter problem with the statistics set to soar after 1 July 2007
• According to Keep Australia Beautiful's recently released National Litter Index, cigarette butts are the number one most littered item in Australia making up 49% of the litter stream by number. Butt littering is a nationwide problem with an estimated seven billion butts entering the environment every year
• 24 billion filtered cigarettes are sold in Australia every year and it is estimated that approximately 7 billion of these are littered
• 6 out of 10 Australian smokers in outdoor sittings litter their butts
• Cigarette butts have consistently made the top ten of items picked up in the Clean Up Australia Day rubbish report since it started in 1990
• Cigarette butt litter comprised 58% of all items littered in public places around Australia
• The Department of Sustainability Victoria estimate that local government spend approximately $58 million each year cleaning up litter
• 95% of litter on beaches comes from suburban streets through the stormwater system. 350,000 butts enter Port Phillip Bay each year
• Cigarette Butts can take up to 12 years to decompose