After dealing with the annual cleanup of 315 tons of cigarette butts, aka mégots, the City of Paris has finally declared war on the ugly pollutants. Starting today they are installing 10,000 ashtrays and snuffers on Parisian poubelles (trash bins) to encourage smokers to put out their cigarettes and throw the butts in the trash, not just flick them onto the streets, sidewalks and parks like they do now. But that’s not all…
It’s the beginning of an information campaign which will take place throughout the summer. Beginning in September they will start issuing fines of €68 (the same fine for not cleaning up after your dog, which, since it went into law in 2002, has VASTLY reduced the number of dog poop on the city streets, as anyone who lived here before that can confirm). In 2014 the City of Paris fined 25,000 people for littering, leaving garbage on the curb, dog poop, and public urination (of humans, not dogs). My local town hall in the 13th even distributed free pocket ashtrays this afternoon on the Butte aux Cailles to “encourage” smokers to stop being total butt heads.
one of my first trips to Paris, I wrote a trip report on Fodors, commenting as I sat alone one night at a café near my hotel, How the tree in front of me with an iron grate was mulched with cigarette butts.
The poor tree! That is a very good initiative. You can imagine the disgusting butt ends here in Montréal after winter snows recede. At least Paris has some sanisettes as an alternative to public urination. The lack of public conveniences is a very serious problem in cities. Not just for drunks or vagrants: pregnant women, elders who become more "pisse-minute", people with various medical conditions.The last thing one wants to do if one needs the loo is to have to drink a coffee somewhere.
Very good to hear, and about time! I'm sure with some fines and time, the butt problem will be greatly reduced as was the dog poop.