B.C. environmental group turns cigarette butts into surfboard to raise awareness

A B.C. environmental group is drawing attention to the amount of waste generated by discarded cigarette butts in a very West Coast way.

Surfrider Pacific Rim has collected about 1.2 million cigarette butts over the past five years with the help of Tofino and Ucluelet, B.C., partners.

The goal of the group's Hold On To Your Butt campaign is to prevent the single-use items from littering local beaches and entering the food chain.

"Cigarette butts, worldwide, according to the World Health Organization, are the number one littered item that is collected with clean-ups," said Laurie Hannah, a chapter coordinator with Surfrider Pacific Rim.

Some of the 1.2 million cigarette butts that were collected in the area were also saved to make a surfboard.

"This is called our 'dartboard' and this is [part of] our Hold On To Your Butt campaign," said Hannah.

The building of the dartboard by a Ucluelet shaper was also made into a film, with the entire project taking about a year to complete.

The ridable surfboard made out of cigarettes is shown. (Surfrider Pacific Rim/Youtube)

"I was in there while they were [making it]," said filmmaker Mike Dandurand.

"It was very, very smelly and stinky, and the video doesn't do it justice, but yeah it was kind of a gross job."

Dandurand says the film helps drive the environmental group's message home.

"Putting it all into one thing really shows that there's a problem, and how nasty it is," he said.

Besides collecting littered cigarette butts, the group's Hold On To Your Butt campaign also has another goal.

"We want to actually ban cigarette filters and create legislation, provincial, federal, that actually bans them completely and makes them into something that's more natural and can be broken down," said Hannah.

The dartboard will spend the next year on display at West Coast businesses that are participating in the Hold Onto Your Butt campaign.