Today Supervisors Katy Tang and Sandra Lee Fewer announced an innovative pilot program to curb the number of cigarette butts that are tossed onto sidewalks and roadways and that eventually end up in our sewer system and coastal waters. The pilot is a result of both District Supervisors working with the Surfrider Foundation with support from San Francisco Public Works. Forty cigarette butt cans will be installed along Ocean Beach and on commercial corridors in the Sunset and Richmond Districts. For six months, these cans will be emptied by Public Works. The Surfrider Foundation Butt Brigade’s “Hold on to Your Butt” campaign will conduct periodic cigarette butt counts in the pilot areas to determine the effectiveness of the program. Supervisors Tang and Fewer announced the cigarette butt ashcan pilot this morning at Ocean Beach Stairwell 17 and were joined by the Surfrider Foundation and volunteers, Public Works, SF Environment, and community members.
The pilot began on June 30, 2017 and will last six months. Twenty cigarette butt ashcans will be deployed in high cigarette litter areas in each neighborhood. In the Sunset, they will be installed on Irving Street between 19th–25thAvenues, on Noriega Street between 19th–25thAvenues and 28th–33rdAvenues, and along the Ocean Beach Promenade from Noriega to Rivera Streets. In the Richmond, they will be installed on Geary Boulevard from Arguello Boulevard to 7th Avenue as well as from 18thAvenue to 22ndAvenue, and on Ocean Beach in the parking lot from JFK Drive to Stairwell 18. The collection cans will be supplemented with business and smoker education about toxic butts as well as the providing of free pocket ashtrays for smokers to use when they are not near a collection can. The SF Surfrider Butt Brigade will coordinate cleanups and cigarette butt counts in each area before the pilot, during the mid-point of the pilot, and at the end of the pilot to see if the ashcans and education have decreased the number of cigarette butts in the areas where butt cans are installed.