The campaign to wipe out the litter of cigarette butts on the streets of Slidell is starting to work, but Bill Mauser, chairman of the Keep Slidell Beautiful Committee, said there is still more to do to sweep the butts away.

“It’s all a matter of education and promoting awareness,” Mauser said.

In the year since the city began a concerted effort to clean up Slidell, a lot has been done, according to Mauser. No littering signs that include the phrase, “This includes cigarette butts” in big red letters have popped up all over town, especially at the gateway streets like Gause Boulevard and Pontchartrain Drive.

Part of the campaign to clean Slidell streets of cigarette butts are these new signs warning people not to throw butts onto the streets. (Staff Photo by Erik Sanzenbach)

The KSB Committee has invested in pocket ashtrays and 200 of those tall spindly cigarette receptacles.

Mauser said KSB has donated 180 of the receptacles to Olde Towne and the Parks and Recreation Department. He said he has noticed a lot fewer butts where the receptacles are located. The KSB group is buying 125 more to be sold to private businesses for $40 each.

The pocket ashtrays have been a big success, Mauser said. KSB members have been handing them out at such events as the Bayou Jam concerts and every Saturday at the Camellia City Farmer’s Market in Griffith Park.

“We gave away over 1,000 of them at the Farmer’s Market,” Mauser said.

KSB also decided to give away the pocket ashtrays at spots where cigarettes are sold.

“They are getting into people’s hands,” Mauser said. “We are giving a lot of them away.”

Mauser said the operators of the city’s street sweepers are reporting fewer butts in the streets.

Mauser said he’s glad people are paying attention because it is a hard thing to enforce legally. Slidell police find it difficult to catch people tossing butts out their car windows, so Mauser hopes public education is changing people’s attitude.

“It’s like the broken-window theory. If you fix the small things like cigarette butts, people will notice and try to keep things clean,” Mauser said.

Anyone interested in getting a cigarette receptacle or pocket ashtrays, can call Mauser at 265-5029.