It is estimated that, every year, around 680 thousand tons of cigarette butts end up improperly discarded in the environment. These can be mistaken for food by animals and although they are small, “just one butt” is enough to contaminate 1000L of water - the amount a Portuguese person uses, on average, per week.

Butts, despite their appearance, are not biodegradable. They are mainly composed of cellulose acetate, a plastic fiber, taking up to 10 years to decompose in the environment. Throughout this process they release thousands of toxic substances such as formaldehyde, arsenic, lead, nicotine, copper and a variety of pesticides.

The environmental impact of cigarettes is not limited to the butts. To grow tobacco, 200,000 hectares of forest are deforested each year, consuming around 22 billion tons of water. Tobacco production also results in the release of 84 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to a fifth of the CO₂ produced by airplanes.

In 2020, with the intention of raising awareness among the population about the pollution of urban and leisure spaces, we created the “CleanUp Aveiro” project. Through this movement, we carried out dozens of cigarette butt collections on public roads, cleaning the beach and the estuary, in order to make Aveiro a cleaner city. Over the last four years, the project has had the participation of around 2000 volunteers who, driven by their interest in helping the environment, managed to collect a total of around 300,000 cigarette butts and around two tonnes of waste.

This year, we expanded the project by holding a small competition and a series of awareness-raising actions in participating schools -Agrupamento de Escolas José Estêvão, Agrupamento de Escolas Mário Sacramento and Escola Profissional de Aveiro - where we informed students about the importance of the initiatives carried out, causing much surprise and concern among those present. In addition to collecting cigarette butts with schools, we also organized a collection open to the community, on May 30th, with the collaboration of ESN Aveiro and the Clã Académico de Aveiro.

A total of 40 cigarette butt collection actions, that took place between March and July, allowed the 900 participants to collect a total of 137,692 butts. These were deposited in the “beatão” which is exposed to the public at Forum Aveiro. This structure, which will be open to the public until the end of September, has an infographic on the back about the environmental impact of cigarettes in the hope of impacting the community and promoting a change in attitudes. After the exhibition, the Rede Biatakí will be in charge of treating and valuing the butts.

With all the conditions and efforts coming together, it was with energy and good humor that the participants were focused on collecting the largest number of cigarette butts. The winning school of our competition was Escola Profissional de Aveiro, which took “home” a small trophy, a symbol of the joint effort of its students, teachers and staff - they collected 100 thousand of the 130 thousand cigarette butts!

Together we can build a stronger, more united community. Together we make Aveiro a cleaner and more beautiful place!

CleanUp Aveiro  is organized by Agora Aveiro in collaboration with  Escola Profissional de Aveiro. It has  F.Fonseca as “Main Partner” and JR Mudanças and Forum Aveiro as “Silver Partners”. It is done in partnership with  Agrupamento de Escolas Dr. Mário Sacramento, the Agrupamento de Escolas José Estêvão, Veolia, the Rede Biatakí and the Escola de Ténis de São Bernardo. It has the support of Município de Aveiro and the IPDJ - Instituto Português do Desporto e Juventude, I.P..