Unsightly butts spoiling French ski resort

VAL THORENS, France, Feb 13 (AFP) – One of France’s most popular ski resorts has launched a campaign against cigarette butts, saying the hundreds of thousands of unsightly stubs thrown each year in the snow pose a serious environmental hazard.

Val Thorens – a popular destination in the Alps for British and Dutch tourists in particular – said the campaign, started Sunday, was not an anti-smoking initiative but rather an effort to reduce the number of cigarette butts that blight the pristine mountainside.

Up to 30,000 butts are found under just one of the most heavily used chairlifts, “enough to pollute 30,000 cubic metres (30,000 tonnes) of water, or the volume of 500 private pools,” said Johann Leiritz, an official at the resort’s tourist office.

To battle the habit, the office has built a glass box that will display the thousands of cigarette butts picked up alongside an exhibition showing the long-term environmental damage caused by man-made trash.

Two thousand pocket containers designed to hold used cigarettes will also be sold to skiers at the subsidised price of EUR 1.50 (USD 1.90).

© AFP

                                                              Subject: France news