GREAT INDY BUTT OUT
Great Indy Butt Out
In 2009, Keep Indianapolis Beautiful announced the first ever Great Indy Butt Out – a campaign and competition to inform and challenge Indy High School students to think twice about the unhealthy effects of cigarette butt litter and to do something about it. The Great Indy Butt Out (a program of the Great Indy Cleanup) gave students a chance to make a difference in their community by collecting cigarette litter - the number one form of litter in the United States - and encouraged them to consider the effects of cigarettes on their own health while competing with other schools for citywide recognition.
A total of 106 pounds of cigarette butt litter was collected by 6 participating schools. Here are some fun facts:
- 20 cigarette butts weigh .12 ounces, which calculates to be a whopping 282,701 butts collected!
- At ~$6 per pack, the cigarettes that were purchased and eventually thrown out as litter initially cost $84,810
- 200 butts have enough nicotine in them to kill an adult human - there is enough nicotine in the butts collected by students to kill 1,414 adults. Imagine what damage they cause when swept into our waterways when it rains? (www.whyquit.com)
- 200 butts contain approximately 50-60 milligrams of nicotine. That means that Indy high school students removed over 75,000 milligrams of this toxin from our environment!
- The average participating student collected 1,520 butts! What an accomplishment!
THE 2010 Great Indy Butt Out will be in the fall this year. Please contact Tammy Stevens if your high school is interested in participating!
