10,000 reasons to make lake beaches smokefree
A QUEENSTOWN woman will lobby district councillors today to declare the resort’s beaches smokefree after picking up more than 10,000 cigarette butts in only a month.
Liz Smith, who will speak at the Queenstown Lakes District Council’s 10yearplan hearing, said she wanted the council to ‘‘lead the way’’ in achieving the country’s ‘‘aspirational’’ Smokefree 2025 goal.
Mrs Smith said she was overwhelmed by the ‘‘awesome’’ response to her social media post on Friday about the 10,527 cigarette butts she and her two young sons picked up from the
Queenstown Bay and Frankton beaches in 30 days.
Her campaign had received national media attention and her post had garnered nearly 2500 ‘‘likes’’.
She was already aware of the issue from taking part in regular beach cleanups with other Sea Shepherd volunteers, but she had decided to go a step further after noticing Frankton’s beach was also strewn with butts.
The filter of each cigarette butt took 10 years to decompose, and contained a dozen toxic chemicals that leached into the lake.
Many smokers had contacted her to say they would change their habits, she said.
Some had told her they would never litter with larger items like food wrappings or coffee cups, and were just not aware of the effects of discarding the butts.