It’s up to us to keep our favourite meadows, beaches, urban spaces and forecourts clean and in great condition. Polluting them with discarded cigarette butts is not the way to go about it and definitely not the way to care for them.
It doesn't matter if you are a smoker or a non-smoker, it matters if you are responsible to everything that surrounds us.
That is why we are happy to welcome the #ChangeThePicture awareness campaign by Philip Morris Bulgaria, which aims to raise awareness about environmental pollution caused by improperly discarded cigarette butts and to provoke responsible consumer behaviour. This spring, #ChangeThePicture embarked on an exciting collaboration with NATFA, as 7 teams of 2nd year students in directing, cinematography, dramaturgy, editing, sound and production created videos inspired by the awareness campaign and presented the global problem of improperly discarded cigarette butts through the prism of art, making an appeal for care for nature.
We support with both hands these art collaborations, which direct our eyes exactly to the problems related to the environment, and here is what Dilyana Yakova, Manager of Regulations and Sustainable Development at Philip Morris Bulgaria, told us about the initiative: “We are used to seeing cigarette butts all around us, because every fourth smoked cigarette falls in the park, on the street or on the beach instead of in the trash. We believe that it is our responsibility to change public attitudes to this problem and to provoke a change in consumer behaviour to tackle it. This is the aim of all the initiatives and actions we are organising in the country as part of the #ChangeThePicture awareness campaign.”
In the summer of 2021, impactful visions were placed on 40 beaches on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast,
In the autumn, volunteer cleaning campaigns were organized in 5 Bulgarian cities: Plovdiv, Blagoevgrad, Varna, Burgas and Ruse. During the clean-ups, nearly 180 volunteers, more than 50 Philip Morris Bulgaria employees, partners and supporters from the local municipalities collected a total of 620 kg of cigarette butts and other waste. On World Cleanup Day – 18 September – a month-long exhibition of #ChangeThePicture information panels was also opened in the City Garden in Plovdiv. Immediately afterwards, the exhibition moved to Sofia in the NDK garden, where the attractive visions provoked the attention of passers-by, and this spring an exhibition was also opened in front of the Ivan Vazov National Theatre.
This summer, the campaign also opened an exhibition in the maritime capital, located in front of the Architect’s House. The exhibition was part of the campaign’s activities,
which this year wants to #ChangeThePicture in the art districts in the country, part of which is Talyana in Varna,
distinguished by its cultural and historical heritage and artistic energy. The campaign, with a call to action, also includes celebrities who share the cause of #ChangeThePicture. Among them are the musicians from the band “Remains”, the writer, musician and radio presenter Geri Turiyska, the journalist and radio presenter Niki Kanchev and the PR expert Iva Ekimova. If you want to see more about this super cool campaign and the global problem of environmental pollution by improperly discarded cigarette butts, click here or take a look at the #ChangeThePicture campaign Facebook page. And pick up your cigarette butts, my friend – nature is for everyone and should be clean!
The material is published with the support of Philip Morris Bulgaria.
For more cool initiatives – see Eli Joteva, the sea and an art project that opens the heart
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