Cigarette Butts and What to Do About Them

Now that GreenGirls.net has adopted a street that we are responsible for cleaning up on a quarterly basis, we are acutely aware of the pollution caused by cigarette butts. During each cleanup session, we notice that there are countless butts scattered along the roadside. The amount of time it takes to clean up these items is huge. Even a small segment of our designated street, say 100 feet, can take hours depending on the volume of butts.

Do the people flicking these butts even realize that they are creating a workload for their fellow citizens? If they did know the effort required, would they care enough to change their habits? We don't know. However, we need to at least try to educate drivers and pedestrians to think twice before flicking their butts on the ground and instead put them in a trash receptacle. There are many reasons to do so.

Volunteers in Pearland (TX) hold annual Cigarette Litter Awareness Days. The following link offers a wealth of information that we may want to use in the future:
http://www.keeppearlandbeautiful.org/cigarettelitter.html

If you want to take action on your own, you can report any litter violations via the Don't Mess With Texas web site. See link below:
http://www.dontmesswithtexas.org/report-a-litterer.php

We can all do our part to keep Austin clean. Prevention is the key.