Penny for your butts?
A pilot program to recycle cigarette butts is being hailed as a way to clean up the estimated million butts left behind on Metro Vancouver streets each year.
Vancouver doctor Stuart Kreisman is proposing a deposit program for the butts, similar to the way people return wine or beer bottles for a small refund.
With a $500 grant from the Vancouver Foundation, the West End Cleanup group tested out the recycling program last weekend.
It offered a penny for each butt returned -- $20 for each pound. The response netted about 60,000 used filters.
“The response was overwhelming, absolutely overwhelming,” says West End Cleanup co-organizer John Merzetti. "Our ultimate goal of the program is to get butts off the street."
Kreisman is hoping the city and province will now adopt a wider butt return program.
“Putting a value on cigarette butts will lead to the elimination of cigarette litter,” he said.
The group has set up a petition at Change.org calling on the province to implement a cigarette-butt deposit system.
Although the province has no plans to set up a system, Vancouver city councilor Adrienne Carr is putting forward a motion to the mayor to get involved.
Carr told CTV News she believes a deposit program would go a long way to clean up local streets.
"If you put a small amount of money into the incentive to return something, people get motivated by it,” she says.
With a report from CTV British Columbia’s Scott Hurst
