Butts needed

Australian artist Adrian Avenell needs 200,000 two-tone cigarette butts to make a sculpture and he wants smokers to help him.

"I've estimated if I can get 50 40-a-day smokers to save their butts for me I could get what I need in about six months," Mr Avenell of Devonport in Tasmania said. "I'm asking smokers to save their butts and post them to me, then I'll reimburse them their costs."

Although a smoker himself, Mr Avenell says his 10-cigarette a day habit would never provide enough butts for the 4.5m-long, 1.8m-wide sculpture he is planning.

The sculpture will feature a pavement covered with cigarette butts, a coffin and the Grim Reaper.

"I am hoping Australia's anti-smoking lobby will commission the piece, or maybe even QUIT or Clean Up Australia, but the sculpture is not necessarily intended to have an anti-smoking message," he said.

"It is just an artistic piece I want to make using quite different material."