Students will have the opportunity Thursday, Feb. 13, to show their support for UCF’s smoke-free campus initiative by collecting cigarette trash around the main campus – and have a chance to win cash. This will be the second time the Student Health Advisory Committee has hosted the Butt Clean Up Day event.
“Last year, with the policy being so new, it made perfect sense to host the event while everyone was still adjusting to the smoke-free campus,” said David DeWitt, president of SHAC. “But we wanted to do it again this year because we feel it still needs to be prominent and visible to everyone at UCF that this is a smoke-free campus.”
The four students collecting the most cigarette trash will be awarded $50 gift cards to Barnes & Noble. To participate, students should check in at the smoke-free tent on the Student Union patio after 10 a.m. to register and pick up supplies, and return the trash by 5 p.m. The trash will be recorded by volume and disposed of by Environmental Health and Safety. All participants will be given UCF smoke-free T-shirts, and the winners will be notified the next day for prize pickup.
The voluntary smoke-free initiative, which went into effect August 2012, was put in place to encourage a more-healthy lifestyle. Since UCF went smoke-free, Valencia College, Florida State University and Seminole State College also have joined the more than 1,182 universities and colleges in the nation with smoke-free or tobacco-free policies in place. When UCF made the change, all ash trays on campus were removed.
Volunteers last year collected about 32 gallon bags of cigarette trash.
For more information, contact Megan Pabian, coordinator of university relations in Health Services, megan.pabian@ucf.edu.