Smokers now taking their habit—and their cigarette butts—to outskirts of campus

Two weeks have passed since Tilburg University introduced a campus-wide smoking ban. The ban has turned the university into a smoke-free zone, but cigarette butts now seem to be piling up on the public sidewalks surrounding campus.

On Wednesday, a university employee sent out a Tweet to Tilburg University. ‘A smoke-free campus is great, but who is cleaning this up?’, she wrote, adding a comment about careless smokers to her message, as well as an angry emoji and two photos of cigarette butts discarded on the public sidewalk that connects the campus to the Warande forest.The Oude Warande is not the only place where smokers are converging now that the smoking ban is in place.

Ever since the university went smoke-free and the designated smoker poles and ashtrays on campus were removed, unofficial “smoking areas” have been popping up everywhere along the campus boundaries. As a result, cigarette butts are left on the ground or in the grass on the outskirts of campus.

A foreseen problem

Heel goed zo’n #rookvrije campus #TilburgU, maar wie ruimt dit op? De rokers zijn blijkbaar te lam en te asociaal om het te doen. Wat denk je dan van #milieuvervuiling? Dit is alleen nog maar bij de Oude Warande. pic.twitter.com/UflUStI2DS

— Lisette Ligtenberg (@Ligtreflex) August 28, 2019

Although concrete plans to prevent smoking-related littering around campus have not yet been presented, it’s a problem the university anticipated. 

Before the ban was implemented, the university announced to maintain close contact with the local community and the municipality about the effects of the new smoking policy on the area surrounding campus. That way, the nuisance caused by Tilburg University smokers and their debris should be kept to a minimum.

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