Lucas, Chloé, Matthieu and Louise, from left to right. – @Momentum
- Every Thursday, in its “off-field” section, “20 Minutes” explores new spaces for the expression of sport, unexpected, unusual, clever or booming.
- This week, the challenge of Matthieu and three of his relatives, who will swim 380 km down the Seine from Paris to Deauville to make people aware of the pollution caused by cigarette butts.
- Before they set off, a large collection was organized in various places in Paris.
It sounds slightly disproportionate said like that, but it is indeed the idea. From Saturday, four young people will swim 380 kilometers to encourage smokers to walk 10 or 20 more meters in the street in order to throw their butt in the trash rather than on the ground. We need at least that, explains Matthieu, 27 years old and dean of the gang, to change even a little behavior and reduce the impact on the environment of these abandoned bits of cigarettes. .
We don’t necessarily realize it, but for over thirty years cigarette butts have been the main source of plastic waste in the ocean. Only one of them pollutes up to 500 liters of water and takes more than ten years to degrade, according to Surfrider Foundation Europe. When we know that there are 40,000 who end up on the ground every minute in France, that poses the urgency to act.
No moral lesson
The worst – or the best, it depends – in all of this is that there is nothing simpler. “No need to rethink all the production plants,” notes Matthieu. The solution to this problem is first and foremost a change in behavior. Just, if we throw our butt in the trash, which is not the case today for 60% of smokers, we have done a lot of the work. “
Important clarification, the young man, who works at Circul’R [une entreprise sociale qui vise à créer des ponts entre les startups et les grands groupes afin qu’ils mettent en place des solutions d’économie circulaire], is not there to give moral lessons. “I’m not fundamentally against smokers, I just don’t think they are aware of all of this,” he says. This is the meaning of his action, which will therefore take shape this Saturday, two days before World No Tobacco Day.
Initially, it will aim to beat the world record for collecting cigarette butts. A large collection, open to everyone *, is organized from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in ten places in Paris. Everyone will then meet at Pont d’Iéna, where two giant gauges of two meters each will be installed to collect everything that has been picked up. A bailiff will very officially announce if the record has been broken. With over 1,000 registered, this should (unfortunately) not be too much of a problem.
“The more people there are, the more cigarette ends, the more noise it will make. In five minutes, we already collect a hundred and we really realize the magnitude. These people will be ambassadors, who will surely talk about it to their relatives, who will talk about it in turn, etc. », Hopes Matthieu, supported in this project by Surfrider Foundation and the town hall of Paris.
A very supervised challenge
He can also count on his brother Lucas, his girlfriend Chloé and the latter’s cousin, Louise. To generate a wide response, the gang of four decided to add a sporting dimension to its civic action. In 2019, the first three had already done well, with the crossing of the Strait of Gibraltar to swim to alert on the presence of microplastics in the ocean. It made them want to start over.
This will be the second phase of the action carried out on Saturday. From 4.30 pm, with the last arrival Louise, they will swim for a week in the Seine, taking turns over the 380 kilometers between Paris and Deauville “to symbolically retrace the path of a cigarette butt thrown on the ground”. A very supervised challenge, of course. Swimming in the Seine is dangerous – and forbidden, for that matter. They will be able to do so, once the limits of Paris have been crossed, but not under any conditions.
These amateur but accomplished athletes (semi-ironman, triathlon, etc.) will be followed by two boats and a kayak, to supervise them, warn the other boats of their presence and serve as a base camp for rest and supplies. “There are plenty of risks, that’s why we’ve been preparing this adventure for a year,” observes Matthieu. We are not Sunday swimmers, we are closer to the hyper-equipped climber who is going to make his ascent. It’s a real expedition, we have wetsuits, a health expert on board, a defibrillator, and 500 hours of training in the legs. “
For him as for his acolytes, athletic performance is not trivial. She wears them at the same time as she serves them. Our adventurer says it much better than us: “If I talk about the pollution of cigarette ends all alone in my garden, not sure that it has much impact. We build a story, and through sport we arouse emotion. It is she who will allow us to deliver a message. “
* Registration open until Friday 6:00 p.m., all information on this link