Dubai Municipality in conjunction with advertising agency BPG has launched a campaign to  address what is potentially a very serious issue for kids playing on our beaches with a strong creative idea used to address an important social issue across the UAE.  It aims to raise awareness on the ill-effects of cigarettes littering the beaches here.

Campaign entitled ?Kids Play? involved the creation of a 3m-high by 3m-wide sandcastle at Beach 2 in Al Mamzar Beach Park that was then covered in cigarette ends that had been collected from beaches in the park.

The sand sculpture, created by Dubai Municipality in conjunction with advertising agency BPG Bates, is designed to highlight the issue of millions of cigarette butts being left on Dubai?s public beaches and the threat they pose to children and marine life.

The sandcastle was built by award-winning sand artists Paul Hoggard and Remy Geerts with the help of the ?Volunteer in UAE? group, who picked up nearly 50,000 butts in just one hour at a beach in Umm Suqeim last year and a further 31,000 were picked up recently at Al Mamzar.

The volunteers working on this installation collected thousands of cigarette butts from beaches and other public spaces.

The campaign?s goal is to give people food for thought on how pollution of this scale can affect the future of our children, as well as the environment in the UAE. The campaign will also be running on social media with an online petition to encourage smokers to discard their cigarette butts more responsibly.

The ?Kids Play? campaign is in line with the Dubai Municipality?s efforts to discourage smoking and the pollution of public spaces in the emirate in an attempt to achieve Dubai?s vision for sustainability.

Source :7 days newspaper