In this town in Eure, residents are made aware not to throw their cigarette butts anywhere

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In the street, in parking lots, in nature, throw away your cigarette butt is for most smokers an automatism. A small gesture that has major consequences on the environment.

This is also why an awareness morning was organized in mid-November 2024 at Charleval (Your), on the occasion of tobacco-free month.

Under the impetus ofFree Spaceof citizensd’associations but also healthcare professionals took to their neighborhood on the Place de la Poste to chat with passers-by over a coffee.

Environment and Health Committee

It was also an opportunity to discover the very young Environment and Health Committee created in mid-October 2024, presented by the director of Espace libre, Valérie Payen.

“This committee brings together residents, associations and health professionals who act together. Everyone participates freely depending on the subject being discussed. Anyone interested can join us.” A committee which works in particular on the establishment of a journey of the heart a May 2025.

Smoker or not, many have learned that cigarette butts are, “in terms of numbers, the world's leading marine waste, ending up in the stomachs of fish and therefore on our plates”.

“A single cigarette butt, which contains between 2,500 and 4,000 chemical substances, pollutes 500 liters of water, and takes 12 years to degrade. »

Posters recalling this information are also made available free of charge at Espace libre.

2,000 cigarette butts collected in one hour

Information pinned alongside the action carried out by the adventurers of the planet of leisure center of Espace Libre a few days before in the streets of Charleval.

Equipped with maps of the different neighborhoods of the town, they identified the places where cigarette butts are most numerous: in front of stores, in parking lots, on the sidewalks below residential windows.

The adults accompanying them collected the cigarette butts: almost 2000 in one hour.

“This mapping and the collection of cigarette butts in the town had a positive impact because local residents who had seen the children and volunteers the day before, collected the cigarette butts themselves in front of their windows. »

Smokers could also obtain disposable ashtrays and advice on quitting smoking from local health professionals but also from the Adissa association.

The two tobacco sales outlets in the town had joined forces by responding favorably to highlight pocket ashtrays that they offer for sale.

Butts invite themselves to the municipal council

This awareness morning had an echo during the last Charleval municipal council November 29, 2024.

This time wearing her municipal councillor's hat, Valérie Payen asked that the possibility of establishing an agreement with Alcome, the eco-organization working to reduce cigarette butts in the city, be discussed at a future council meeting. public space.

To learn more, two members of the Environment and Health Committee went to Ferrières-en-Bray, which has an agreement with theAlcome a year ago.

“The eco-organization would pay the municipality the sum of €0.50 per resident to implement prevention, but also install ashtrays for example,” explained Valérie Payen.

A fine for “throwing a cigarette butt”?

In return, the municipality will have to carry out an inventory of the sectors where cigarette butts are the most numerous and collection systems – already done -, launch a communication plan on cigarette butt waste by having available communication kits provided by the eco-organization, make an annual assessment of the actions carried out and finally commit to working on the repression aspect.

For this last point, the municipality must commit to penalizing the “throwing of cigarette butts on public roads”, by setting the amount of a fine.

An amount of fine which will simply serve to characterize “the throwing of cigarette butts” (which falls to the municipalities), because already, any throwing of cigarette butt (which is waste) is punishable by law with a 4th class fine of €135 (reduced to €90 and increased to €375) and up to €750. In short, the municipality would simply continue to apply the law.

Elected officials, including the mayor, Pascal Calais, proposed examining this agreement at the next meeting of the municipal council.

And in the future, the future of these butts will have to be part of discussions on a much larger scale. Because on the territory of Sygom, the waste manager, cigarette butts are not collected but are sent to incineration.

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