Reality Check members recently spent a Sunday afternoon picking up litter and “chalking the walk” at Swinburne Park in Albany. In one small area near the playground and soon-to-be-reopened splash pad, members cleaned up hundreds of cigarette butts along with other trash. The chalked facts and stats called attention to the harm caused by tobacco litter.
In 2020 New York State banned smoking in all public parks, including in municipal parks. The clean-up made it clear that more needs to be done to foster compliance with the policy, including educating community members and posting visible signs. Many municipalities throughout the state have also banned the use of e-cigarettes in parks, but currently the City of Albany has not.
Reality Check members, Amra, Ashita, and Myla spoke before the Albany Common Council on August 4th to describe what they saw and to stress the importance of smoke and vape-free parks for clean air, the environment and for preventing the normalization of smoking and vaping for young people.
A week after the initial cleanup the Reality Check members returned to Swinburne Park and were interviewed by WRGB Channel 6 Albany. The teens were asked about the environmental impact of tobacco and the importance of keeping our parks tobacco free. You can read the article and watch the segment here.
Learn more about the benefits of smoke-free, vape-free parks.
To the left is a typical tobacco product display. If you don’t use tobacco, you may not even notice, but kids do. Kids see. Kids notice. Kids remember. In fact, kids are more than twice as likely as adults to notice and remember retail tobacco marketing.