If you pull tape around the campus in Randwyck, including the green areas, you would have marked off the entire smoke-free zone. Smokers have to walk quite a way to puff on a cigarette. Practically nobody does this, as appeared from just one hour’s surveillance around UNS50. Smoking students, employees, and a few ‘white coats’: everyone is guilty of it. Their butts end up on the ground or are crushed on the large red bins. There is not a smoker to be seen just outside the limits of the UM grounds this Monday afternoon.
Rebelliousness? Laziness? Indifference? Or ignorance? It is at any rate not because of the signposting; on all the UM grounds, there are multiple signs with the text ‘These grounds are smoke-free’. Also in English.
At the faculties in the city centre, it seems that people are more inclined to adhere to the smoking ban. The limits of the educational premises are clearer. However, that is where there is a real cigarette butt problem. Because smoking is no longer permitted, the UM has removed all ashtrays from the university grounds. One glance at the footpath and street near the gates to FASoS, SBE and the Faculty of Law makes it clear where the butts are ending up. “It is bad for the environment and for the image of the university,” members of various faculty councils commented at the beginning of April. There were suggestions for solutions, such as fines of one euro and making sure the area is cleaned. Or addressing those involved directly, dean of law Jan Smits recommended. But as yet, this doesn’t seem to have yielded any results.
The Executive Board admits in a written reaction that because of Covid they have hardly supervised at all. Now that students and employees are returning to the university, it is “becoming visible that the inconvenience on and outside the UM premises is increasing” and that measures will have to be taken. The building managers will have to enforce compliance of the smoking regulations. The occupational health and safety service, together with Marketing and Communication, will “bring the smoking policy to everyone’s attention again”. Attention will also be drawn to the ‘Quit Smoking’ course that the UM offers.
And what about the cigarette butts? These will be cleared away every other week by the UM’s maintenance service, even if they are on municipal grounds around the university buildings. “This applies to the locations where people smoke most, such as Universiteitssingel 50 and Tongersestraat 53”, said the Executive Board.