“Some are completely stuck,” says Johan, as he points the hose of his butt vacuum cleaner at a stubbed out cigarette. In vain, the thing is stuck between two paving stones.
Johan is prepared for it: with a wave of his hand he exchanges the hose for a long stick with a hook at the end. Just as a dentist removes the plaque between your molars, he removes the cigarette butt from between the stones. “You get good at it,” says the IJmuide resident with satisfaction.
Normally he ‘trades’ with a group of IJmuiden residents. That word is a combination of cleaning up the mess and walking. But today Johan is going out alone.
One cigarette butt can pollute a thousand liters of water
The butts are a thorn in his side. “If you knew how many toxic substances they contain, you wouldn’t throw them on the street,” Johan is convinced.
According to the Trimbos Institute, cigarette butts lead to serious pollution of the soil and water, damage to the DNA of organisms and disruption of growth in plants and high mortality among aquatic life. According to research, one cigarette butt can pollute up to a thousand liters of water.
Meanwhile, Johan is amazed by a surprising statistical improbability as he walks along the Lange Nieuwstraat in IJmuiden with his butt vacuum cleaner: “Everyone I speak to always says to put away their cigarettes neatly.”
He smiles broadly about it under his striking hat. “Every few weeks I easily clean up almost two thousand butts in an hour and a half.”
