Goumbook's Save The Butts Initiative

Cleaning up discarded cigarette butts by engaging with individuals and companies, working together to convert waste into a value-added material.

What is the Save The Butts – Goumbook's waste to value sustainable initiative

Save the Butts – waste to value, is an engaging campaign that started in February 2022, that promotes awareness about plastic pollution, ocean conservation and behavioral change.

Thanks to more than 3,100 volunteers that have participated in different events and activations, and establishing 9 permanent collection points, we’ve been able to clean UAE public and private spaces from more than 1 million cigarette butts, that will get transformed into a sustainable alternative to plywood, avoiding deforestation at the same time.

According to The World Health Organization (WHO) and its published report – Tobacco and its environmental impact- “Since the 1980s cigarette butts have consistently comprised 30–40% of all items picked up in annual international coastal and urban clean-ups”

Some facts about cigarette butts:

  • Worldwide, around 4.5 trillions of cigarette butts are littered in the environment every year.
  • It can take up to 12 years for cigarette butts to decompose (European Parliament, 2018) as most cigarette filters are made of plastic fibers (cellulose acetate).
  • There are more than 7,000 chemicals in a cigarette (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010) and many of these chemicals are themselves environmentally toxic, making the cigarette butts a hazardous waste.
  • Cigarette butts are 95% plastic, making them big plastic polluters.

You can join Save the Butts whether you are an individual, school, work in a company or want to sponsor the campaign.

  • Youth & Schools participation: this is a great opportunity for the youth and school students to get involved to clean up the environment, and put the hours in to count towards their community service.
  • Corporate partners participation: the perfect way to involve your team in your sustainability agenda, whether you do a clean up or join the annual commitment program. 

Save The Butts Targets and Objectives

POLLUTION AWARENESS 0 +
Audience reach
ENVIRONMENTAL CLEANUPS 0 +
Active participants
CIRCULAR ECONOMY 0 1million+
Cigarette butts

The Save The Butts campaign is funded in part by

Permanent Collection Points

Campaign Partners

Earth Month Community Beach Clean up

6 Permanent Collection Points

Atlantis, The Palm

DNATA

Barasti

Atlantis The Royal

Centara Mirage

OMG

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