To the editor:

Why do we still accept careless disposal of cigarette butts?

I think about this issue every time I walk along a beach, enter City Hall, walk down Main Street, and when I see people casually toss a cigarette butt out of a car window.

I've been thinking about this issue even more after reading that the four-alarm fire that destroyed a Peabody apartment complex—leaving people homeless and displaced, and causing millions of dollars worth of property damage—was apparently caused by careless disposal of a cigarette butt.

So why is it still acceptable to the majority of smokers, who probably know that littering is wrong, that littering of cigarette butts is OK?

Maybe it's a question of scale—after all, each cigarette butt is relatively small and nondescript.

Good souls who are willing to pick up other forms of trash are, understandably, reluctant to pick up this form of litter—so it accumulates and accumulates! The aggregate numbers are astounding.

According to the Web site ecolad.com, cigarette butt litter is the world's greatest environmental litter problem. Globally, approximately 5.2 trillion cigarettes are manufactured every year, more than 250 billion in the U.S.A. In countries where indoor smoking bans have been introduced, almost 1 in 3 cigarette butts end up as litter. In most Western countries, cigarette butt litter accounts for around 50 percent of all litter.

Maybe people think that cigarette butts rapidly decay—wrong! Cigarette butts are made of cellulose acetate, a form of plastic, which can take up to 12 years to break down, and when in contact with water can leach chemicals such as cadmium, lead and arsenic, ultimately potentially polluting our marine environment.

Only smokers can stop cigarette butt litter. But we can inform them that butts are litter, and provide positive alternatives to littering.

So what can we do to encourage smokers to clean up their act?

One way is to provide people with personal ashtrays. So instead of corporate giveaways being, for example, a tote bag, why not emblazon your corporate logo on a "BUTTsOUT" personal ashtray?

We can politely inform people that the streets are not an ashtray. Why not require mandatory ashtrays outside restaurants and bars?

If you are willing to work together with the League of Women Voters of Cape Ann to address this issue, please e-mail LWVCapeAnn@comcast.net.

If enough people pool their ideas and resources we can kick the cigarette butt habit here on Cape Ann. The benefits are enormous!

MAGGIE ROSA

Fort Hill Avenue, Gloucester,

President, LWV Cape Ann