Sometimes red buckets aren’t enough. Last Wednesday at the Lydia Olson Library at Northern Michigan University, a presentation called “Nine Lives of a Cigarette Butt” was given to the public as part of the UP4Health Challenge.

Part of the focus was on the health hazards of smoking, of course, but another focus was on the negative environmental effects of cigarette butts.

The Superior Watershed Partnership, which was involved in the “Nine Lives” program, has distributed red buckets throughout town where people can dispose of their cigarette butts correctly.

It’s a big problem.

One fact stated in the program was that 30 percent of the total litter collected by count in the United States can be attributed to cigarette filters.

Later that Wednesday, volunteers in a beach cleanup scoured the popular McCarty’s Cove on Lake Superior to pick up cigarette butts.

What they found was appalling.

A total of 633 butts were found and, fortunately, removed from the beach.

According to Madelyn Ek, self-sufficiency educator with the SWP, that accounts for 68 percent of the litter, compared with the 30 percent she mentioned in her presentation talk.

It wasn’t only cigarette butts that were gleaned from the site. The list of other items removed from McCarty’s Cove included 49 food wrappers, 44 pieces of plastic, 36 pieces of foam,19 metal bottle caps, 18 fireworks, a doggie bag and even a pair of swimming goggles. No partridge in a pear tree, though.

It’s not necessarily that Marquette residents by and large aren’t environmentally conscious. More likely they don’t realize the harm cigarette filters pose to the environment.

Made from cellulose acetate polymer, filters aren’t biodegradable. Also, discarded filters that get into Marquette’s approximate 3,300 storm drains find their way directly into Lake Superior, where an unsuspecting duck, for example, could mistake them for food.

Overall, the most prudent and all-around healthy thing to do would be to quit smoking. However, that probably would be difficult for most if not all smokers, although it should be their goal. In the meantime, they must dispose of their cigarette butts correctly.

If a red bucket isn’t available, smokers should hold on to them and discard them in a proper container. Non-smokers can help by picking up cigarette filters and disposing them properly as well — washing their hands later, of course.

Not only are cigarette butts unsightly, they aren’t good for the environment. So, everyone should do their part to keep as many of them out of Lake Superior — and the local landscape in general — as possible.