The San Diego County Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation will hold demonstrations on Thursday, Aug. 17, the same day that the smoking ban at all city beaches and parks will go into effect. The high-profile move is part of the group’s sixth annual “Hold On To Your Butt” day, which aims to educate smokers and encourage them to properly dispose of their cigarette waste.
The evening demonstrations from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. will consist of activists holding informational signs, and handing out bumper stickers, literature and pocket ashtrays. This year will also include a street sweep during which volunteers will sweep cigarette butts out of the gutters.
“Hold On To Your Butt” Day is part of the foundation’s 12-year-old campaign of the same name, which was established to raise awareness of the problem of cigarette litter.
The campaign originated with the San Diego Surfrider chapter and grew to international proportions under the larger foundation’s guidance.
“Our goal is to educate smokers about disposing of their cigarette butts properly,” said Stephanie Sekich, vice chair of the San Diego County Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. “We want to inform people that cigarette butts are not biodegradable.”
Cigarette butts, or filters, actually contain a type of plastic that as it degrades, gets smaller and smaller, but never disappears completely, she explained.
“We also want to convince tobacco companies to use less packaging and we’re working with businesses and government agencies to provide more disposal mechanisms such as ashtrays and signs,” Sekich said.
Aug. 17 also marks the unveiling of 30 large ashtrays that the foundation will placed along Newport Avenue. The ashtrays are self-contained, rustproof stainless steel.
“We owe an enormous amount of credit for this ashtray project to the Ocean Beach Mainstreet Association,” Sekich said.
The OB Mainstreet Association will be maintaining the ashtrays as part of their campaign to “Keep OB-eautiful.”
With the implementation of the smoking ban, the foundation is trying to stay positive, said Sekich, though there are concerns that cigarette litter will merely move from the beaches to the streets.

“We hope that people remember that there is a smoking ban, and while they are getting kicked off the beach and walking down Newport Avenue, they see all the brand new ashtrays there for them to use,” Sekich continued.
She said she believes the heart of the problem comes from a misconception that cigarette butts are not litter.
“A lot of smokers just don’t view it as litter,” she said, “and unfortunately that has been ingrained in our society for decades now.”
Cigarette butts are not the only problem, though. Everything that goes along with smoking, including lighters, wrappers, cartons and matches, can also become litter.
“We have all these gross pictures of the inside of seagulls’ stomachs full of lighters and cigarette butts,” Sekich said.
She stressed, however, that the foundation’s goal is to keep the streets, beaches and ocean clean, not to convince smokers to stop smoking.
“We’re not against smokers and we don’t advocate smoking,” Sekich said. “We just want to help smokers dispose of their cigarette butts properly.”
The foundation hopes that “Hold On To Your Butt” Day will increase public awareness, create less litter and break bad habits.
If the pilot outdoor ashtray program is successful in Ocean Beach, the foundation plans to expand it to other beaches in the county.