298,925: this is the number of cigarette butts that were collected during a vast collection operation organized in several neighborhoods of Toulouse, Wednesday 12 October 2021.

“It’s a real ecological disaster, sighs Florence Ducroquetz, president of the association. Scope who organized the pickup. There were so many cigarette ends that we didn’t have enough bottles to collect them. “

Mapping of the most polluted neighborhoods

200 people got involved in the operation: employees, young people with disabilities, young people in professional integration … Their action will make it possible to establish a map of the places in Toulouse most polluted by cigarette butts which will then be transmitted to the services of the town hall of Toulouse.

According to the count made by the cigarette butt collectors on Wednesday, this is the neighborhood Borderouge-La Maourine which comes first with 18,625 cigarette butts. Follow The cow (16,750 cigarette butts); Compans-Caffarelli (16,050 cigarette butts); Courthouse (15,925 butts) and Jeanne D’Arc (15,550 butts).

“We found them in places of water infiltration that go directly to the Garonne which is still our main source of drinking water. We are told that it is a problem of incivility, but it is above all a infrastructure problem: there are not enough ashtrays in Toulouse!

Each butt contains 2,500 toxic substances and each butt can pollute up to 500 liters of water.

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