Since 1 August 2020, all Maastricht University premises are non-smoking areas. Lines on the pavement and information signs indicate where smoking is allowed, and where not. So, no smoking in the garden of the Faculty of Law, but you can at the entrance, on the pavement of the Kapoenstraat, Lenculenstraat or Bouillonstraat. That is where Diana Schabregs, council member on behalf of the administrative and support staff of the Faculty of Law, regularly finds cigarette butts. What can we do about it, she wonders aloud at the Faculty Council meeting of 23 March?
On the other side of the Maas, at the Faculty of Psychology, student member Lilly Schröder brought up the same subject a month earlier: students and employees all smoke “in the same place, which is where they subsequently leave their butts”.
Would it be an idea that the UM installs ashtrays on its own premises where students and staff can dispose of their stubs, was one of the suggestions. That turns out to be not allowed, Pascal Stevens, director of the Faculty of Psychology and Neurosciences, tells the council members at the next meeting after he had inquired about this. “The Netherlands is aiming for a non-smoking generation. Legislation no longer permits smoking on the grounds of an educational institute. So, we cannot install any ashtrays. But we also want a clean area. So, if you see cigarette butts anywhere, let me know, I will make sure they are cleaned up.”
Other – sometimes quasi-serious – ideas are put forward at Law: have (previously Covid) stewards walk around and call smokers to account, copy a Swedish system in which crows are trained to pick up butts, fining the polluters. “Even if we were only to ask for 1 euro,” a council member calls. In actual fact, that fine – if the polluter were caught by the police – is 150 times as high.
Dean of Law Jan Smits thinks that it is a joint responsibility. “If you see someone throwing a cigarette on the pavement appeal to him or her.”