Where: Jervis Bay
When: March 2005
Event: Vincentia artist Cheryl Cross with her “Smoked Fish” artwork as part of the awareness strategy for the Butt Free Bay and Basin Campaign. Councillor Jim McCrudden officially launched the Butt Free Bay and Basin Campaign at Whites Sands Park at Huskisson.
Clr McCrudden told the gathering of guests, sponsors and campaign workers that the single most commonly littered item in Australia is the cigarette butt. The campaign started recently in the Bay and Basin area and trained outreach workers already have approached more than 800 people offering portable butt disposal containers. The campaign is not a non-smoking campaign and the right to smoke is respected, but the campaign aims to change butt-littering habits by helping people understand that butts are litter. The campaign also involves research, monitoring, promotion and the provision of information – including outdoor and personal ashtrays to retail and tourist businesses and to community groups.
Collected butts were used to create a series of large “cigarettes” that were suspended from a tree at the final event of the campaign. The aim was to place these to lift butt litter to eye level to raise awareness of the extent and impact of butt littering.