The city, together with organisations including Department of Human Services, Bendigo Bank, Centrelink, Bendigo Health and the new Australian Technical College, sees the new bins as part of a "proactive campaign to combat cigarette butt litter".

Under the agreement, the council will provide the bins, while each of the organisations or businesses will clean and maintain them and the surrounding area.

The measures are to be applauded, but need to be complemented by a vigorous campaign aimed at stomping out the abhorrent practice of smokers dropping their butts on the ground in complete disregard for the environment and the local amenity.

While it is pleasing to note that the participating companies and organisations will distribute educational material and hopefully get more people to quit smoking, ratepayers who have funded the new butt bins need to be given assurances those who fail to obey the law and continue to pollute the environment with their cigarette butts will receive the appropriate penalty for doing so.

New and improved legislation introduced over the past 12 months may well have led to an increase in employees smoking outside the workplace, but it does not give anyone the right to break the law.

Cigarette butts are said to be the most common form of pollution entering our waterways. Surely by now we all know that these same waterways are far too precious to be treated as an environmental dump.

What do you think?

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