“Save the Butts” to Save Our Oceans

LET’S JOIN HANDS TO CREATE VALUE FROM WASTE

Since 70% of our planet is covered by water, it felt right to celebrate our ocean this Earth Month. Having been working with the amazing team at the Ocean Conservancy for some time on marine clean-up activities, Goumbook was grateful and excited to have secured a small grant under their Team Seas Earth Month funding scheme. This grant supported us in running three free clean-up events for the community as well as one school, getting a total of 104 volunteers engaged in our new “Save the Butts – Waste to Value” campaign collecting over 19,100 cigarette butts from public beaches and actively doing their bit for a healthy, thriving ocean!

ABOUT “SAVE THE BUTTS”

“Save the Butts – Waste to Value” is the first sustainability initiative run in the UAE that adopts a Circular Economy approach to environmental pollution by converting discarded cigarette butts into a sustainable alternative to plywood. Through engaging with the private sector, educational institutions, and civil society, Goumbook collects and transforms the most littered item in the world into a value-added manufacturing material in partnership with two local start-ups. Supported by the Dubai Government, the campaign aims to educate the public about the dangers of cigarette butt pollution and ultimately achieve a behaviour change towards more responsible practices that are in line with environmental and resource protection.

As an environmental protection initiative, “Save the Butts” operates year-round in multiple stages: While the cooler months since its launch in February were perfect to get a lot of people engaged in hands-on participation and removing thousands of cigarette butts from beaches and residential areas in the process, with the heat setting in soon, we’ll shift our focus to the other leg of the campaign which is the annual commitment option. This form of ongoing collection is a scheme particularly suitable for office buildings, malls, hotels, and F&B outlets with smoking areas, where high volumes of cigarette butts accumulate on a regular basis. By becoming annual members of “Save the Butts”, corporates have the opportunity to channel their cigarette butts into the circular economy, offering a sustainable solution as part of their entity’s waste management plan. Goumbook supports its annual members with trainings, communication assets, a marketing toolkit as well as dedicated bins and storage containers branded with the company’s logo and “Save the Butts” key messages.

The ongoing collection process is remarkably straightforward: Cigarette butts that get discarded in either the existing ashtrays or designated “Save the Butts” bins on the premises, are simply emptied and stored in a dedicated sealed container on site by the facility management team. Periodically, once the container is filled, a pick-up by the waste collection partner is requested comfortably via their mobile app.The cigarettes are collected, and the storage container is returned to the company. Participating companies receive their monthly impact report, and their cigarette waste contributes to the production of a sustainable construction material by our manufacturing partner.

Do you also want the cigarette waste collected from your company premises on a regular basis, knowing that not only it will not pollute the environment, but it will even be recovered as a multi-use construction material manufactured entirely from waste? Then the “Save the Butts” annual commitment might be right for you.

Do you represent a company that is looking to engage with youths or the community? Reach out to us at ask@goumbook.com to find out how you can sponsor clean-up events and put your brand on the map as one of the supporters of sustainable, circular solutions.

www.goumbook.com/save-the-butts