Stop the cigarette butts in Lake Geneva!

The CIPEL and two NGOs are setting up a prevention campaign on the beaches of twenty-one municipalities on the shores of Lake Geneva. The objective of the campaign launched by CIPEL and Summit Foundation, in close collaboration with ASL: to raise the awareness of bathers to the environmental impact of cigarette butts, the most common waste found on the lake shore.

The summer frequentation of the beaches of Lake Geneva exerts a strong pressure on the lake and its shores. The CIPEL undertakes an action of sensitization against the littering of cigarette butts on the beaches, the banks and the riprap which border Lake Geneva, to prevent the abandonment of the waste most often found during the actions of collection.

This campaign marks a first, as it is built in close collaboration between a governmental body and two environmental NGOs active in the region: the International Commission for the Protection of the Waters of Lake Geneva, Summit Foundation and the Association pour la Sauvegarde du Léman. "We are delighted to see our "comic bubbles" campaign once again used in the plains for the preservation of the lake," said Olivier Kressmann, director of the Summit Foundation. He adds that "The collaboration with two NGOs allows us to join forces and increase the scope of our actions".

As of this summer, the three organizations are making available to the municipalities along the lake awareness panels on the impact of cigarette butts, thanks to funding from the CIPEL. The ASL supports the campaign with a relay on its various communication channels, allowing the project to benefit from a local anchoring. The messages of the campaign are as much about the consequences for wildlife as about water pollution or about their transport by rain into the environment.

Twenty-two municipalities in Switzerland and France have responded favorably to this initiative and are participating in the campaign, which starts this summer and will run for the next five years. "We are very pleased with the success of the initiative with the municipalities. While we were expecting about ten for the first year of the project, twice as many have already expressed their interest," says Audrey Klein, Secretary General of CIPEL.

The campaign is to be discovered from now on on the shores of Lake Geneva.