The Keep Mandeville Beautiful organization is cracking down on butts - cigarette butts.

KMB launched its Keep Your Butt in Your Pants campaign in mid February to help abolish cigarette litter from city streets and highways by distributing pocket ashtrays free of charge to residents. While you probably won't see the small, portable ashtrays making a run as the latest clothing accessory, they are otherwise handy for extinguishing and storing disposed cigarettes until a trashcan can be located, which, KMB Director Susan Russell said, is surprisingly the more appropriate place for the tiny nuisances that tend to collect and form small villages along highways.

"I think if smokers think two steps ahead of time about what will happen when they finish their cigarette, they will realize the importance of these pocket ashtrays," she said. Nicotine addicts can find the ashtrays at local stores and gas stations throughout Mandeville, but Russell said the devices are going fast.

"Many of the stores called and said they ran out in the first couple of days," she said.

This effort is made possible with help from Gallinghouse and Associates, which created the campaign's flyers, Keep Louisiana Beautiful, which provided the ashtrays, and the local businesses participating in the distribution process.

"The biggest problem we have in Mandeville is cigarette litter," Mayor Eddie Price said, adding he believes the problem lies with smokers ignoring the ashtrays in their vehicles and their casual attitude with throwing them out the window.

"Smokers don't make the connection between cigarette butts and litter," he said.

Russell said another disturbing aspect of cigarette litter is its ability to travel extreme distances, courtesy of wind and rain, and find its way into the city's waterways, disrupting the quality of life.

So far, Russell said it is too premature to determine the success of the campaign, but if studies prove it's making an impact, KMB will purchase 6,000 more ashtrays to distribute for free.

"Ideally, what would be nice to come from this is not to keep giving out free pocket ashtrays," Russell said. "Hopefully they will change their smoking behavior."

Russell also hopes businesses will adopt the idea of the ashtrays and begin selling them in their stores.

This campaign was launched on the heels of the Litter is Scary campaign that features banners of ghoulish creatures created from commonly found litter, that hang along East and West Causeway Approach.