Operation Clean Up
No butts about it, Operation Clean Up was a smashing success today at Oklahoma State University.
OSU kicked off its first day as a tobacco-free campus by asking students and employees to pick up cigarette butts littering the Stillwater campus.
Here are the results:
– Approximately 26,667 cigarette butts were collected in one hour (10 pounds)
– This number translates to 293,337 minutes of life lost on campus due to premature death caused by tobacco use (as per British Medical Journal – one cigarette reduces life by 11 minutes – http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/320/7226/53 )
– The “value” of the cigarettes $5,586.74 (average in Oklahoma is $4.19 per pack)
– Time spent smoking this number of cigarettes (assumes 7 minute average) = 186,669 minutes or 3111 hours
– The New York Times reports for each pack of cigarettes smoked, it costs the nation more than $7 in medical care and lost productivity. Based on this average, the number of butts collected today cost the nation $9331 in healthcare and lost productivity.
– Approximately 25 volunteers from across campus participated in the event.
Readers, make sure you check out our new blog by several OSUers trying to quit smoking. http://blog.newsok.com/quitting
Susan Simpson
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