Butt clean up campaigns: wolves in sheep's clothing?

BUTT LITTERING TRUST There is growing concern about this form of unsightly and dangerous pollution. Google shows 63 500 hits for ‘‘cigarette butt’’ and ‘‘litter’’ and the international tobacco industry has got a nasty lungful of this new ill-wind and may be coming soon with a big environmentally friendly smile to run a publicity campaign near you. In Australia, British American Tobacco has set up the Butt Littering Trust, with $A2.8 million (US$2.089 million, J1.619 million) allocated over four years. Philip Morris has spent $A331 775 (US$247 454, J191 833) on butt litter reduction in one Australian state. Cheery staff hand thoughtful smokers a little film canister to store their butts, and suburbs get awards for running local awareness campaigns. The Butt Littering Trust website gushes that by April 2006, three years after the programme commenced, 12 000 Australians smokers have ‘‘signed the pledge’’ to not discard butts. This leaves around 2 880 000 who haven’t signed and provides insight into a recent government assessment of these campaigns which ‘‘have not translated into widespread reduction of cigarette butt litter. The impact of current activities funded by cigarette manufacturers is clearly unsatisfactory.’’ The Butt Littering Trust is wholly supported by British American Tobacco (BAT), whose representatives sit on its board. The Trust’s chairman is adamant that BAT plays no role in shaping the strategies and goals of reducing butt litter. So why then is the Trust equally adamant that it will limit its efforts to education and not join with other organisations to try and reduce the number of cigarettes being smoked, and then available to be discarded as litter? All anti-litter campaigns openly embrace three broad strategies: reducing use, recycling and education to ‘‘do the right thing’’. Serious anti-litter organisations campaign to reduce packaging such as plastic bags, and lobby for bottle deposit legislation and tougher fines for littering. The Butt Littering Trust deliberately limits itself to education. Imagine how seriously the community would regard a plastic bag manufacturer setting up a Trust to educate shoppers not to discard bags, while lobbying hard to oppose any reduction in bag use. This is exactly analogous to what BAT is doing through the Trust. Grantees are warned that all communication with the public must adhere to the Trust’s key messages, with all public statements being vetted for ‘‘consistency in messages’’. Don’t even think about urging smokers to quit.