On June 29, Borås turns 400, and what could be a better gift than making sure that the whole of Borås that day is completely free of cigarette butts on the ground as a starting point for a cigarette butt-free future?
A cigarette-free city is the ambition of the cooperation group Borås. They are currently running a campaign to draw the attention of the boråss to the cigarette butt problem. Seven out of ten rubbish thrown on the ground is a cigarette butt, and in Borås about ten million cigarette butts are thrown in the wrong place every year.
Part of the campaign is that 60 solar-powered, smart trash cans have been given new looks with cartoons where it is clear where the cigarette butts should be thrown away. The messages are communicated from the cigarette butt Cigge's own perspective. He likes to end his life with other cigarette butts in an ashtray or in a trash can, and not in the beak of a mouth or as fish food.
"We believe in attracting attention with the help of humor, and then spreading messages about how dangerous cigarette butts actually are to the environment. We want everyone to want a cigarette butt-free city, whether you smoke or not," says communications strategist Annika Klemming.
Right up until the birthday on June 29, a competition takes place on Borås' clean and tidy Instagram account. Boråsarna is encouraged to post beautiful or thoughtful pictures from Borås with the hastag #enfimpfristad. Borås City sponsors with gift cards as a prize.
"Just before the birthday, we are also planning a large activity involving hundreds of holiday workers. If Borås is not already completely cigarette butt-free at this time, the holiday workers should help with picking cigarette butts. But hopefully the campaign has already had such a big impact that they will have a quiet day," says Annika Klemming.
Borås, with more than 113,000 inhabitants, is the second largest municipality in the densely populated Västra Götaland region. 1.7 million people live here within a 10-mile radius. In 2021, the rapidly growing textile, commercial and knowledge city of Borås celebrates 400 years. We do this by focusing on how we build an even better city, an even better municipality to live and work in.
