Ullapool kids help raise awareness of littering in the NC500 village ahead of tourist season
THE Ullapool Sea Savers have brought back their Drain Campaign for a fourth year, to continue raising awareness of the toxicity of cigarette butts have when they end up in a drain.
The child-led environmental activism group began the campaign in 2022, after they discovered shocking information about the impact of a cigarette butt.
To raise awareness about this, the Sea Savers add lettering around drains in the village, with the slogan ‘THE SEA STARTS HERE, PLEASE DON’T LITTER’, using stencils and biodegradable chalk spray paint that fades away in time.
The campaign gained popularity online, inspiring communities from across the UK — and even Portugal — to take part.
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The Sea Savers previously explained: "We found out that cigarette butts are the most littered item in the UK, but a lot of people don't realise that they are litter, they contain really toxic things like arsenic and lead.
"We got in touch with a local girl called Megan who has her own campaign called 'No Ifs No Butts', and she gave us lots of information, like how the cigarette butt is the most littered item in the world, and that a single cigarette butt can intoxicate a whole litre of water.
"Litter goes into the drain and straight into the sea. People don't realise that their litter and cigarette butts do go into the sea, and pollutes it."
The Ullapool Sea Savers also previously clarified that they aren’t campaigning against smoking, but rather that people dispose of their cigarette responsibly.
As well as the drain slogans, the group also set up multiple cigarette ballot bins around the village, so that smokers have an easy alternative to putting cigarette butts down the drain.
