Cigarette butts are a huge problem for the environment. Billions of them cause significant damage to animals, plants and waters around the world. Political actors respond with the ever-same ideas: Higher penalties for littering, more wastebins in the public space, awareness raising campaigns.
Since the effectiveness of these and all other measures that have been suggested is evidently most limited, the citizen’s initiative “Die Aufheber” (literally: the up-pickers) proposes a radical alternative: A deposit of 20 cents for each cigarette (butt) and an extensive recycling programme for all remains of tobacco consumption.
The Initiative for a Cigertette Butt Deposit was launched in co-operation with Stephan von Orlow in Berlin in 2019. It unfolds at the interstice of a thought experiment and a pragmatic suggestion for political action.
