It’s the most omnipresent form of pollution in any major city in the world.  Everywhere you look or step, there’s a cigarette butt.  From Montreal to Tokyo, the buttprints of smokers are everywhere, and that’s part of the problem facing one Chinese city.  In an attempt to win an award as a National Clean City, the provincial town of Xianyang, China has started paying residents for cigarette butts; now they’re starting to run out of money.

That’s right, the cigarette butt collection bounty is working so well the city has received 7 million cigarette butts, which has run up a staggering $50,000 in bounties owed to collectors; that’s just butts, not packaging!  Assuming the city doesn’t lower the bounty or find a way to use the cigarette butts to make some money to pay for the program, they’re in some serious financial trouble.  Maybe use the discarded cigarette filters to refine steel?

I can only imagine how much money it would cost American cities to undertake this kind of comprehensive litter removal program.

Tags: Xianyang, China, National Clean City, paying residents for cigarette butts, city pays residents for cigarette butts, cigarettes, pollution, litter, city pays residents to clean up litter, cigarette butt bounty, street sweeping

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