For a city that prides itself on being clean and 'green', Portland has a very real litter issue. On sidewalks, in public doorways and thrown from car windows, cigarette butts are everywhere!
Almost as bad as the smoke that comes out of them, these non-biodegradable eyesores threaten our city's reputation for livability.
'The world is a smoker's ashtray', so the saying goes...but that shouldn't apply to a place as progressive as ours. Most residents are too smart to litter; it's a small minority of smokers causing the majority of offenses.
Portland needs a public awareness campaign to raise the consciousness of those who litter, not only their butts, but gum and wrappers or any other superfluous packaging.
There are receptacles for that called 'garbage cans'.
As a kid, I remember many slogans were created to raise good citizens. One in particular stuck: 'Don't be a litter bug!'. This I learned not from the green streets of Portland, Oregon but from the mean streets of Detroit...Michigan!
We require dog walkers to pick up their pooch's doo-doo. Why not smokers, too?
