Since Denmark banned smoking inside in 2007 and the smokers were forced to flee outside to get their dose of nicotine, the number of cigarette butts littering the streets of Copenhagen has shot up.
And with 81 percent of the rubbish picked up in the city streets being cigarette butts, Copenhagen Municipality has had enough.
The city has acquired some 400 ashtrays discarded by rail operators DSB and will offer them to public institutions and private companies in a bid to shrink the mountain of cigarette butts that builds up in the city every week.
“It’s an obvious move to re-use the discarded ashtrays and I hope that many will accept the offer or put out ashtrays for their guests of their own accord,” Morten Kabell, the deputy mayor of technical and environmental issues, told Metroxpress newspaper.
READ MORE: Streets of Copenhagen increasingly swamped by cigarette butts
It’s all for free
The municipality will deliver and set up the ashtrays for free, the only condition being that the various places must empty and maintain the ashtrays themselves.
The ashtrays will be delivered according to a ‘first-come, first serve’ principal and the municipality underlined that they must be positioned so that passers-by aren’t exposed to second-hand smoke.
