"Cigarette butts account for 30-35 per cent of litter on our streets."

A Peterborough man is accused of flicking a cigarette and throwing cigarette butts at a grocery store employee.

We have laws to deal with careless drivers but not careless smokers, Bob Layton says.

Included in the park's cleanup was nearly 3,000 discarded cigarette butts.

The city kicked off its #ButtFreeYYC campaign to help educate smokers on the fines and environmental impacts of improperly disposing cigarettes.

Cigarette butts are among the most common forms of human-made pollution in the world's waterways.

While some trails have garbage collected by HRM staff, others are maintained solely by volunteers, so when people dump their trash it can cost the volunteers money to properly dispose of the garbage.

The city is buying thousands of "pocket ashtrays" for smokers to put their butts in, rather than throwing them on the ground.

The cleanup event was part of a prevention program launched this past week aimed at reducing cigarette litter across the city.

A number of ashtrays will soon be gone along busy Edmonton strips like Whyte Avenue and Jasper Avenue to comply with the new no-smoking-in-public-places bylaw.