CSUF Fresh Air Advocates pick up 18,343 cigarette butts to promote a smoke-free, healthy campus

Daily Titan

Cigarette butts filled dozens of volunteers’ plastic bags as Fresh Air Advocates (FAA) held their “Cigarette Butt Cleanup” event on Titan Walk Friday to promote the smoke-free campus policy.
“It’s always been a positive thing. I think it’s good for the students to see that there is somebody actually responsible to clean up after their mess when they leave their cigarette butts behind,” said CSUF University Police Capt. Scot Willey.
Although the cleanup lasted four hours, junior and FAA Co-President Rebecca Dear said in a text message that they picked up a total of 18,343 cigarette butts.
Willey said one of the major issues that affects campus environment is the trash that smokers leave behind, which piles up over time resulting in thousands of cigarette butts.
Since the passage of a 2013 directive, which prohibited smoking in specific campus areas, FAA has hosted a bi-annual cigarette butt cleanup to bring awareness to the continued smoking on campus.
The event works to help promote a healthy campus environment by making it a lot cleaner with picking up cigarette butts, Dear said.
“I feel very proud to be part of this organization, and I feel like we are helping a lot of students be aware of this policy,” said FAA co-president and fifth-year student Shaina Sta.Cruz.
Student volunteers were given a fresh pair of disposable gloves, plastic bags and face masks for the cleanup. Participants also received a free volunteer shirt.
After being split into groups of 12 to 15, students led by FAA interns picked up cigarette butts by their assigned buildings. The groups rotated between buildings every 30 minutes to ensure no trash was missed by the previous group.
Sta.Cruz and Dear said FAA aimed to reach every main building including “hot spots” like Humanities-Social Sciences, Kinesiology-Health Science, Engineering, Computer Science and the Pollak Library.
Kathrina Reyes, a second-year health science ...

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