Cigarette Butts
No Butts About It...This is Litter Too!

As one of the smallest pieces of litter, cigarette butt litter represents over 60% of the litter collected in community cleanups. Discarded cigarette butts introduce a product to our environment which breaks down very slowly and are not biodegradable. The filters contain cellulose acetate in the form a fiber that looks like cotton thread. These fibers take years to degrade in the environment.

Eighteen percent (18%) of all litter dropped to the ground is washed into streams, rivers, lakes and oceans by storm water runoff. Cigarette butts are very small and lightweight and are easily carried off in runoff to our waterways.

How you can help
If you are a smoker, use the ashtray in your car. Don't flick your cigarette butt out the window. It can cause a fire and it is litter. During the 2004 Great American Cleanup, junior high school student volunteers cleaned the roadside from Orleans Park entrance on Front Street to the Perrysburg Maumee Bridge. They picked up a 30 gallon bag of cigarette butts. That is over 10,000 pieces of litter.

Outdoor Cigarette Ash Receptacles
Take notice of the outdoor ashtrays in the downtown shopping district. These Smoker's Outpost are an effort to eliminate cigarette litter in the downtown streetscape. Many smokers have been using the tree and shrub plantings as ashtrays. These outdoor ashtrays are provided for proper disposal of cigarette butts.

As part of a Keep America Beautiful (KAB) grant in 2009, ashtrays were installed at the TARTA bus stop at Kroger and Country Charm. Keep Perrysburg Beautiful received another grant in 2010 to add outdoor ashtrays to the other two TARTA bus stops located at Kroger and Zoar Church parking lot.