You can watch the story of Buttbins on Facebook.

Cigarette filters are a continuous problem and we are carrying on with the work to make things better. For the festival in 2019 we used old window frames and empty jars to make special collection points for cigarette butts – buttbins, to keep illiku clean. These buttbins became hugely popular and that encouraged us to take things further and come up with a more efficient design. But we kept one very important detail – the soup jars!

We didn’t want your traditional trash bins, rather something that would carry the message and raise people’s awareness. We also wanted to know how much people actually know about cigarette butts to gain some insight for future projects. All of this turned into a polling system.

New buttbins are durable and weatherproof, have roofs, spots for putting out the cigarettes and LED-lights. In May and June of 2021 they were out in Tallinn at Balti Jaam and during the time we monitored the polling system, you can find the results below. From there the buttbins travelled to the Patarei sea fortress and illiku, to the I Land Sound 2021 festival, after which they journeyed to new places. 

Are cigarette butts a waste? Yes = 70.6% / No = 29.4% 

Do you think that the pollution caused by cigarette filters is too big of a problem to be solved by a single person? Yes = 65.2% / No = 34.8%

Have you ever thrown a cigarette filter into nature? Yes = 73.3% / No = 26.7%

Do you think that there are enough environmental awareness projects in Estonia concerning cigarette butt pollution? Yes = 46.2% / No = 53.8%

Do cigarette filters contain plastic? Yes = 67.1% / No = 32.9%

Are thrown away cigarette filters an insignificant problem? Yes = 62.5% / No = 37.5%

Are there enough bins for cigarette butts in Estonia? Yes = 47.1% / No = 52.9%

• Project manager: Kadi Aguraijuja

• Cone collectors design author: Laura Pormeister

• Craftmanship: Aare Püüa

• Video (to be completed in winter 2021): Hõbe Ilus

Koni is garbage, put garbage in Kops!

Cigarette butts have become the biggest source of pollution on land and in the sea. In 2017, just when the first I Land Sound festival packed its bags, we also faced the same problem– our beautiful illiku was covered in cigarette butts, even though we had plenty of bins all over the place. After several days of picking up the cigarette filters one by one we understood that this is only a temporary solution and we must find a better way for collecting them. We kept two things in mind – the smoker is responsible for the leftover filters and everything necessary should fit into the pocket. And that’s how we came up with the idea of a portable cigarette butt container. It became an important part of festival organisation, just as important as having enough portable loos. For the second festival year a pocket-sized, reusable, heat and smell proof cigarette butt container Kops was born. Each year we hand it out to all the smoking guests for free and our festival site has remained remarkably tidier.

Kops has grown up and lives its own life, improving the nature and streetscape outside of our festival area.