The City of Nanaimo are handing out free pocket ashtrays to smokers as a way of minimizing Cigarette litter on City streets and in public areas.
The Pocket ashtrays are used to extinguish cigarettes and store cigarette butts until they are able to be emptied into a litter bin. The packet ashtrays look like a small coin purse, they close tightly, are safe to carry on your person and keep all odours locked inside.
This initiative is part of the Keep Nanaimo Clean campaign which has seen anti-littering messaging spread throughout Nanaimo in bus shelters, on the sides of garbage trucks and over the radio waves. The City does not wish to encourage smoking but is keen to help existing smokers do the right thing with their cigarette litter.
The pocket ash trays are available free from all City facilities including the downtown bylaw office.
Residents and businesses foot the bill for cleaning up cigarette litter. This includes additional sidewalk and street sweeping, park maintenance and storm drain cleaning.
Business owners bear the expense of cigarette litter cleanup around their properties.
Anyone caught littering is liable for a $100 fine.
"I think the majority of people want to do the right thing with their litter but there isn't always a suitable option available. These pocket ashtrays are the perfect solution to cigarette litter when you are on the move. I hope all smokers take me up on this offer and come to get their own ashtray." - Charlotte Davis City of Nanaimo
Ever wonder how many of these fines they actually give out and collect? There are so many rules and regulations with penalties for breaking them. Too bad there was not a report showing how many tickets are given out for various offenses.
ReplyDeleteFor example. How many traffic tickets are given out in Nanaimo in a week and what were the infractions?
. . . hmmmm . . . I disagree Charlotte . . . I used to work where ashtrays were provided on the tables of the outside patio, and still people would discard their butts all over the patio and in the mulched gardens (more than once I had to put out fires!) . . . I hope you/we didn't spend too much on this well intentioned plan, as I am convinced pigs are pigs!! (and the only people that will be bothered to use the pocket ashtrays are the same people that would have found appropriate methods of disposing of their butts in the first place)
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