By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – The field stations department at the University of Illinois Springfield has hit upon a fun way to try to keep the area around Lake Springfield clean.

People can deposit cigarette butts into a double-chambered box to “vote” for their favorites: Cubs versus Cardinals, Hiking versus Fishing, and Soda versus Pop.

“Sometimes these signs — don’t litter, don’t do this, don’t do that,” said field stations director Tom Rothfus, “often do not really work and you sort of notice intuitively, when you were a kid, if everyone told you not to do something, that’s the first thing you were going to explore around.”

Rothfus says in addition to simply being litterbugs, many people do not realize cigarette butts do not decompose. The filter is plastic and makes up much of the butt.

Rothfus says the “competitions” on the butt boxes will change every month or so.

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected].