75% of smokers throw their cigarette butts on the ground, this harms marine life and poisons the soil. One cigarette butt can pollute up to 1,000 liters of water. It is clear that the mentality of smokers must change. For this purpose, the Buttle has been developed. This is a tool for people to clean up their cigarette butts, but above all informs them about the impact of cigarette butts on the environment.

Amber Herrewijn of NHL stenden is one of the initiators: “This is the first prototype we have. We want to make people aware of how bad cigarette butts are for the environment. We investigated during ESNS whether the Buttle is a good way to get smokers to not throw their butts on the street.” A smoking passerby honestly admitted that she almost always throws her cigarette butts on the ground: “I don’t know exactly how harmful it is, but I imagine there’s a lot of plastic in it and it’s not very good for the environment.”