Message to smokers from Keep Britain Tidy
Wednesday, December 16, 2009 Natasha Piscitelli, marketing co-ordinator for Keep Britain Tidy, has written to me as follows:
Dear Simon,
Keep Britain Tidy has recently released an online film highlighting the problem of smoking litter. As an organisation which regularly communicates with the smoking community, we’re looking for your support to help us to spread our message.
The 40 second film can be viewed on the Keep Britain Tidy website: www.keepbritaintidy.org/news/bigcig.aspx
It depicts Londoners battling through the capital against a sea of giant cigarette butts, and concludes with footage of the Thames filled with giant cigarette ends and the strapline ‘it’s no small problem’.
We would be grateful if you would help us to promote the film, for example by publishing it on your website or forwarding it on to anyone you think may be interested.
As well as showcasing the film on the Keep Britain Tidy website, we have featured it on video sharing network YouTube and are promoting it through our social networking channels Facebook and Twitter.
To coincide with the film’s release, we have issued a media statement urging the cigarette industry to educate smokers on the impact of cigarette litter and to shoulder more responsibility for the problem.
If you would like to publish the film to your website, please contact me and I will supply you with the code required. Or please get in touch if you have any other ways you can help us to promote the film.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Look at the video and let me know what you think. I shall attach your responses to my reply.
Now, back to the real world (where we're not all drowning in an ocean of cigarette-generated filth) ...
Simon Clark
Ginette Unsworth of Keep Britain Tidy has posted a comment in response to some of the comments on this post. She writes:
As the Marketing & Communications Manager of Keep Britain Tidy, I want to clarify that we did not fund the production of this advert but were merely sent it by a producer who produced it for his portfolio. In all of our advertising to reduce cigarette butts we have tried to ensure not to alienate smokers but just encourage them to use a personal ashtray or put it in the bin. Our research shows that many smokers believe that butts are not litter, and when sent this advert we believed this would go some way to helping raise awareness of the issue.
You will see from our website that we run campaigns on all litter issues, not just smoking litter, and all we are trying to achieve is a cleaner country. We sent this advert to Forest to inform them of the film and we are in no way making any comment on people's right to smoke! This is not a personal attack on smokers and I am disappointed that this has now become a personal attack on one of my colleagues. We do welcome your views but please don't make them so personal and if you want to get in touch further please email us at enquiries@keepbritaintidy.org
Note: I agree with her that we should not make personal attacks on individual employees. That was not the intention of my original post.
Reader Comments (74)
I've seen quite a few adverts recently showing how a small ammount of cash can feed third world families for a year, provide clean drinking water to a whole community, give sight back to the blind, reduce child abuse, provide a bed for the homeless etc. etc..
How much is Natasha Piscitelli paid and how much did this piece of exaggerated propaganda cost.
Why exaggerate minor nuisances when elephants are ignored by the blinkered?
They could not resist it could they, showing a child that had picked up a fag butt.
That one was straight out of the anti’s guilt tripping manual.
How many public ashtrays could have been installed for the same cost as this ad?
Please tell Natasha Piscitelli that the advert is not realistic enough - the public house at the end of the advert should have been boarded up with either for sale or to let signs above the windows. This represents the usual grotesquely distorted garbage (propaganda) promoted by the usual bullies, nannies and idiots who govern us.
I have never seen such a ridiculous piece of propaganda in my life. I live in London, and while there are "some" cigarette ends here and there, mostly outside pubs, clubs and offices, where smokers have been banned from smoking inside, the vast majority of refuse on our streets, is made up from take-away cartons, plastic bags, drink cans, bottles, and chewing gum.
Cigarette ends are disposable, and one shower of rain, causes them to disintegrate. None of the other mentioned rubbish can be washed away like this.
One has only to take a walk down any busy high street, after it has been raining, to see there is hardly a cigarette end in site, but what you will see are dirty sticky blobs of half eaten chewing gum, stuck to almost every inch of the pavement. Not only can this filthy sticky mess not be washed away, but it also spreads decease, as when people spit it out, they are spitting out filthy germs.
Years ago, there was a drive to try and stop people spitting, not, with the help of this appalling piece of film, it seems that that drive will be turned on its head, and we will have a steep rise in TB.
See here
Sorry, not, with the help of this appalling piece of film,should read NOW with the help etc etc...
If Natasha wants people to act sensibly, then she should promote sensible truths.
This is just so unrealistic and awash with propaganda.
Treat people as humans and they'll behave that way. Treat people worse than animals and they'll adopt animal instincts.
The heavily-funded anti-smoking brigade have created this so-called problem.
I wonder what type of film Natasha has planned for the main causes of litter, or is she only concerned with the tiny ciggie butts that have mysteriously turned into giants and rivers overnight.
By aiming their advertising at the very young and the uneducated, Keep Britain Tidy are condoning all other types of filth and rubbish to be dumped on our streets. It is completely irresponsible of them, as their very name implies, they are paid by us, the tax payer, to help Keep Britain Tidy.
They are not paid to implement political dogma.
Look at the advert again, and ask yourself, do you really want your children growing up believing such rubbish? I certainly don't, I want my children to have open minds and to search, explore, and question.
Children have eyes and ears, and are not as stupid as people like this believe. This piece of film should be scrapped now, before it does irretrievable harm to youngsters minds. This is Britain 2009, not Germany, 1930.
"It depicts Londoners battling through the capital against a sea of giant cigarette butts, and concludes with footage of the Thames filled with giant cigarette ends and the strapline ‘it’s no small problem’."
It says everything about this film that they have to make cigarette ends larger than life in order to create the desired impact. Future historians will think we were all mad.
What a ridiculous video, where do these idiots live ?
It's rubbish !
But seriously do these guys use money to produce this stuff ? whose money ? It wouldn't be ours would it ?
What an abuse - of everything money, time, skill, intelligence, integrity, ....
Su G
Well Natasha, on this scale a couple of burger boxes would bring London to a standstill.Is it primary school children you get to formulate your propaganda. Ridiculous and laughable but sad that money is being wasted on this trash.
"Keep Britain Tidy has recently released an online film highlighting the problem of smoking litter. As an organisation which regularly communicates with the smoking community,....."
For 'highlights' read 'of unrealistic images not' and for 'communicates with' read 'picks on'.
And as for -"..... we have issued a media statement urging the cigarette industry to educate smokers on the impact of cigarette litter and to shoulder more responsibility for the problem." maybe it is Keep Britain Tidy that needs to be re-educated to shoulder more responsibility for accuracy and truth.
Surely our lives don't have to be littered with such PC-funded garbage.
I have no words to describe the mentality..Who the hell pays for these idiots ? no...dont answer that.
God help Natasha Piscitelli whoever the hell she is for displaying the desperate scrapings of a hollow mind to produce such a going nowhere video thats going to end up like the giant fag ad that was quickly kicked into touch for being a non runner.
The cheek of her to ask Forest for help in its promotion.
She certainly doesnt understand smokers, or punters in general, if she thinks this disaster video will do anything only give us all a good laugh while we continue to fling and stub our butts out wherever we are, while trying to cope with the stressful and real chalanges of everyday life.
Get a life love, and start looking around for alternative work before the quango axe chops off your demented head.
You have to admit, the smoking issue becomes more laughable every day. Goes to show what these people are.God! Do they think the population are sooo thick!
Simon, I would have nothing to do with this campaign. This organisation and its leaders are from the same mould as ASH. If there is a problem, which I don’t believe there is, then they are the part of the root cause, brought about by pushing smokers out on to the streets. For them to expect our help to solve a problem they helped create is a bit rich.
Easy solution Natasha. How about some street cleaners paid for by the money wasted on 'Keep Britain Tidy'. You know, like the ones we used to have. Problem solved.
I'd refuse to have anything to do with any campaign predicated on guilt and or fear.
And by the way, Did councils not have to sweep the streets before 2007? And if this is a suddenly growing problem, maybe if there were a place where one could smoke indoors and oh. wait. Yeah.
more money to throw away, keep Britain tidy? i say make Britain free.
More exaggeration by anti-smoking propaganda and they wonder why people don't believe them.
Insulting and infantile at best.
I remember seeing some Japanese TV programme some time ago, where all sorts of silly things like this happened, and at first I used to believe it was true, but when they started appearing on comedy TV shows, I realised it was just one big joke.
Would it be beyond a joke though if someone actually belived it wouldn't it?
Perhaps Keep Britain Tidy should consider putting this film in the garbage? The mind boggles at the extent to which mankind has become so undilutedly stupid.
Ask her where the similarly-proportioned skyscraper-sized fast food drinks cartons are.
Plus, how does she expect the tobacco industry to educate us when they can't advertise or, soon, even display their products (not to mention the forthcoming blank packets)?
ESP, perhaps?
I've not seen the film, but then I don't really need to. I stopped at the Badger and Ferret this afternoon, and the front door was, as ever, littered with giant cigarette butts. I had to be dragged over them with main force by a few of the stout regulars inside, who'd shouted "Reach out your hand, and hold tight." Once inside, I rapidly realised that it was just as hard to get out as it was to get in, and so perforce I was obliged to stay far longer than I had intended, and eventually had 6 whole pints of Old Froggie rather than my usual half. When I was eventually dragged back out, I found that the street outside was also littered with the same enormous butts, and I had to drive very carefully to negotiate a path around them. I had almost arrived home, when I encountered a council crane, replete with flashing blue lights, busily working to lift away butts from an enormous pile of the things that had blocked the whole road. As a result I had to find another way home, which took me past the Cow and Partridge, at which I stopped for another much-needed refreshing quick half, which once again turned into another 6 pints of their finest Speckled Boar. I eventually arrived home at a quarter to midnight (after another enforced stop at the Lizard and Petrel) to find my wife beside herself, and worried that I'd been at the booze again. Happily I was able to calm her fears, ascribing my tardiness to the many giant cigarette butts that litter the streets and paths these days, and which our feckless councils seem to be unable to clear away. It doesn't seem to be getting any better, either. Why, only last week I [snip. 200 word limit exceeded]
Please continue, idlex, I was enjoying that - only last week what? :)
Simon.
Nifty Natasha is taking you for a mug. The video is a cheap-muck joke, similar to the one with a smoker being battered by unseen forces. What she wants is for you to publicise it further for her. Tell her to get stuffed.
OR....on the other hand, tell her that, in the absence of other litter, smokers provide jobs in the street cleaning industry which would otherwise not exist.
OR..........on the other hand, people who litter provide her with a job.
OR........on the other hand, the organisation called 'Keep Britain Tidy' is just another Quango - the sooner it disappears, the better.
ANSWER.
"We, THE PEOPLE, think that 'Keep Britain Tidy' is an anachronism, not dissimilar to Ash. It should not be given government grants. It is totally useless and a drain on public funds. If it wishes to continue to exist, it must rely on private donations".
Idlex -
Drinking AND Driving ?
Tut, tut !!!!
Poor Natasha, She'll be quaking in her boots if she has the courage to read the comments from our lot. My heart goes out to her... i do'nt think. Mind you we'll probably get the usual indocrinated self important bullshit reply.
All Natasha and her motley crew at Keep Britain Tidy is to harass the government and Sir Liam D/head to allow smoking back in the pubs and clubs where smokers can use ashtrays, that's the civilised way, simples.
As the Marketing & Communications Manager of Keep Britain Tidy, I want to clarify that we did not fund the production of this advert but were merely sent it by a producer who produced it for his portfolio. In all of our advertising to reduce cigarette butts we have tried to ensure not to alienate smokers but just encourage them to use a personal ashtray or put it in the bin. Our research shows that many smokers believe that butts are not litter, and when sent this advert we believed this would go some way to helping raise awareness of the issue. You will see from our website that we run campaigns on all litter issues, not just smoking litter, and all we are trying to achieve is a cleaner country. We sent this advert to Forest to inform them of the film and we are in no way making any comment on people's right to smoke! This is not a personal attack on smokers and I am disappointed that this has now become a personal attack on one of my colleagues. We do welcome your views but please don't make them so personal and if you want to get in touch further please email us at enquiries@keepbritaintidy.org
Why not give us our smoking rooms back? No-one went in these except smokers so there was no issue with passive smoking.
Ginette I have re-read some of the posts and can't see what is too personal here. Anyway here are some typical quotes and attitudes we have to put up with, all with State sanction from Sir Liam Donalson who said, "But if we want to go further we have got to reinforce all these other tobacco measures and denormalise smoking completely."
"I feel free to go anywhere I want. My self-esteem has also improved. I no longer feel like a "second-class citizen" because I'm a smoker. I don't get dirty looks from non-smokers anymore."
"Now we know it’s a dirty, smelly habit that only really weak people indulge in and nobody in the entire state you’re in has a right to do it in that state. Shame on smokers! Dirty, dirty smokers! Now here they are getting all this free time to go along with their emphysema and lung cancer."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/jun/24/health.smoking
http://www.quitsmoking.com/info/articles/whatitmeans.htm
http://blogs.bnet.com/stanley-bing/?p=440
Dear Ginette Unsworth and others
I know someone (a former neighbour) who works for Leeds City Council as a road sweeper/cleaner. Council workers such as that person were given express orders from their superiors NOT to sweep up cigarette litter some months ago. This is to make it appear that cigarette litter is actually far worse than it actually is. Yes, there are those inconsiderate people who throw cigarette butts (as well as other litter) on to the street etc. but the scale of the exaggeration in the afore-mentioned video demonstrates to me, an ordinary citizen of this miserable country, that this attack upon smokers is personal. It is a 'personal attack' upon a very sizable proportion of today's adult population.
I feel sure that you and your colleagues can afford to sustain a little criticism, as you have comfortable, secure, highly-paid jobs whereas a lot of us have lost our livelihoods, our liberties and are constantly being demonised and persecuted. That is precisely how that advert came across to me, anyway!
Well said Jenny, I agree with you 100%
I think it the duty of all smokers to bring bags out with them to deposit their cigarette ends in.
It is disgusting seeing them on the ground for the children to see. It makes children think that smoking is normal !!
It is a filthy habit to drop litter and I am sure that once these smokers have collected sufficient bags of 'butts' there can be no better recipients than the hard workers at
ASH.
First Floor
144-145 Shoreditch High Street
London E1 6JE
All donations gratefully received.
Cigarette butts are not litter.
Many years ago the cigarette manufacturers were forced to make the filters degradable, so that after time (and rain) they just become harmless paper and cotton particles.
The tobacco itself will rot and become dust/soil once again, whilst the chemicals contained will be in such meagre quantities that you'd need something like every person in the country to smoke 5000 a day before the tar/nicotine remnants would pose a threat to plant/animal life.
The amount of cigarette butts I see on the pavements and roads is miniscule compared to the amount of chewing gum blobs, cans and fast food wrappers. They should be targeted instead.
If people really can't stand the sight of butts on the ground, then public buildings, work places and eateries could provide a segregated room for smokers, with ashtrays. Wouldn't that be a revolutionary idea!
One final, but very important, point on the topic. The amount of tax made from tobacco not only exceeds the cost of smoking to the NHS (by a large margin!) but would no doubt cover the cost of street cleaning and rubbish collection. There would probably be a 7 or 8 figure amount left over for whatever the government wants to do with it.
...slightly exaggerated, don't you think? ...Just like your science on second hand smoke.
Nice try with the toddler picking up the giant cigarette butt!! Look,I like a message (not your message) that reminds us not to litter, be respectful of the environment, etc..But, YOU caused this problem. Put the ashtrays that smokers pay for with their taxes back on the streets (you took them away, remember?); and for Gods sake, give us our right to assemble indoors back or we will vote all of your politicians out of office both in the U.K. and abroad. While you're at it, get a life please, or a real mission.....like feeding starving children. There are a lot of them in this world. The child in this video looks happy and well fed. What's the matter with you?
My hand rolled tobacco is made with biodegradeable paper with tobacco - a plant which is biodegradable, and the paper tip I put in is also biodegradeable.
Ms Unsworth and Ms Piscitelli, and all at Keep Britian Tidy, smokers are angry because for years they have been subject to daily abuse and propaganda that is aimed at making them feel less of a person, less of a citizen.
Personally, and I know a lot of smokers who are the same, I carry my own pocket ashtray. I am against litter and always have been since the Keep Britian Tidy Campaign of the 1970s. That was done with the community - not by portraying that community as the "enemy".
I would rather see your best efforts used to clear the streets of chewing gum which is very costly to remove, non-biodegradeable, and it stays around for decades.
Finally, Simon Clark is right in what he says in his former post. I for one would be very willing to work on a tidy campaign if the organisation that runs it is inclined to treat me as a human being and not a child abuser or bad citizen who does not care about my environment.
I am not sure that you will revisit to see this post and so I will copy it to your own email.
I don't understand it. Why are the dog ends 1000s times actual size? I'm frightened - we really should be more concerned about who's smoking them? Why isn't the government warning us about giants? Are they likely to be drunk and try to pee or vomit on me ...or worse, blow smoke at me?
Please tell me this a lost episode of Land of the Giants?
Ps Is the duty on a pack of 20 still the same? If so, anyone know where I can buy some? Not sure I could get one in my mouth though....and Id need longer arms or matches to light one.
we have tried to ensure not to alienate smokers
This is not a personal attack on smokers
Humbug! All the measures taken over the past few years have been attacks on smokers. They have all been designed to alienate them and marginalise them and exclude them. Zero tolerance is the order of the day, from the highest levels of government on down. Everyone who is any part of any antismoking organisation is now complicit with this. If they don't wish to personally attack smokers they should publicly state that they wish to have no part of this continual process of demonisation and vilification, and withdraw from all antismoking activity.
I feel sure that some people who have genuinely wanted to help smokers give up smoking, and who know that antagonising them was always going to be counterproductive, have been utterly appalled at the hard line that has been adopted in recent years, and have distanced themselves as far as possible. Those who remain are tacitly complicit.
Sorry Ed, but I already said, several posts up the board, exactly what you have just said in your post.
I don't usually pull posters up on what they said, but then being the sort of person I am. I just hate being ignored!
The whole thing makes Watergate look like Scooby Doo.
Simon, why the missing comment from me, and, I think, someone else, from yesterday evening, December 16? I have sent you an e-mail. If there is some breach of site style I would like to know. Or are the comments on some other thread?
Why are they attacking smokers once again?, it is the fault of the Government and their subsidaries ASH and Smokefree who are to blame for forcing smokers outside with no extra ash tray provision.
I also see they are using children as a propaganda tool again, shame on them, and shame on them for wasting more public money.
Remember this at the next election.
It is very easy to get rid of this problem: Remove the smoking ban. Let the people and the businesses solve the smoking issue.
Before the ban the hospitality industry took care of this. But it is just not possible to have it both ways. Throwing smokers in the streets leads to butt littering.
Wise people know that when humans focus their concentration on small, neglible problems they tend to get much bigger problems to deal with afterwards - real problems - not littering.
You should never treat small problems as big problems - or vice versa. Doing so will ultimately lead to catastrophes.
The small problem here is littering. The big problem is a totalitarian bully state, tryng to impose a smoker holocaust.
Both problems will be dealt with when the government removes the ban. And in the end governments in Europe will have to do exactly this, since it becomes clearer every day that these bans are spiralling the economy down.
In case anybody forgot: The smokefree society is not achievable this way. That's what the Irish have shown us - smoking rate is up 22% since the Irish ban to a total of 33% smokers. And 45% of the 16-30 year olds in Ireland are now smokers. This is a huge heavy-smoking generation, and this pattern is likely to be copied by UK in 3 years.
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/smoking-rate-soars-up-to-one-third-despite-ban-1923543.html
I personally blame the NHS for all these oversized fag ends, it was they who planted them all over London with people on top, even fags that size burn down eventually and topple over, lucky for them no one has been seriously hurt by one of these falling butt ends.
Why doesn't Keep Britain Tidy direct their campaign at councils and businesses to provide ash trays. A quarter of the population are smokers, and since the rotten smoking ban was introduced we have been forced outside. If that's where they want us then GIVE US SOME BLOODY ASHTRAYS for crying out loud!!!
Well I think it's an ABSOLUTELY SOOPER ad !
And we award it Second Prize in the 2009 Barrel-Bottom-Scraping Competition.
However, following some fairly heated debate among our panel of distinguished judges, we eventually came to the unanimous decision that First Prize MUST go to 'Beating The Smoker To A Bloody Pulp.'
The tears are still streaming down my cheeks......
I thought the video was quite amusing, but I did not lol (laugh-out-loud, for those who cannot speak the new text message language). It could have been much funnier. For example:
The pretty girl who is pulling her face as she totters through the fag ends could have been shown wearing super-high heels. She could have fallen over and been shown with her legs waving in the air, showing all her knickers (super-jumbo size, of course).
The guy coming out of the pub at the end of the video could have been clutching a pint with a fag in his gob and staggering. That would have been a laugh.
The overhead train could have been belching out clouds of CO2 and the people beneath clutching their throats and dropping down dead. That would have been hilarious.
The motor cyclist could have hit a fag end and gone over the handlebars - straight into a pool of tobacco tar.
Plus lots more possibilities.
Seriously, regarding Ginette Unsworth's claim that her colleague was attacked personally, I have been through all the posts. and have not been able to pinpoint a single one which has in it a personal attack. The only one which has anything approaching a personal element is the one which said, "God help Natasha whoever the hell she is...." But that is not a personal insult is it? This reminds me of a quote from a BRAKE spokeswoman in connection with smoking in cars. She thought that people who smoke in cars 'look through the windscreen through a cloud of tobacco smoke' and she thought that you could drive a car without ever having to take your hands off the steering wheel. When I wrote to this organisation point out the errors of her thinking, was I insulting her personally? I do not think so. I was merely pointing out that she obviously could not drive, if she thought that you can drive a car without ever taking your hands off the steering wheel, and that perhaps a person who cannot drive should not be commenting about the matter. Was that a personal insult? I think not.
Persons who know little or nothing about their subject should keep shtum - and that goes for Natasha and Ginette. Is that a personal insult? I think not.
Lastly, I am not sure that cigarette ends are actually 'litter' as defined by the Act. I seem to remember a recent court case where a person, defending himself in court, was able to show that his 'litter' was not a controlled substance' (it may have been a toffee paper - I cannot recall). Are cigarette filter stubs controlled substances? I do not know.
Where do Keep Britain Tidy stand on City of London smokers being fined for dropping butts when there are no bins allowed because of terrorist measures?
Where on earth are they supposed to get rid of them? And why are other litterers not targeted in the same way?
Keep Britain Tidy could show a lead, if they are truly not trying to upset smokers specifically, by objecting to such victimisation.
Methinks there are hollow words being spoken here.