Some people like butts — rappers, the Charmin bear and talc miners, for instance. But when it comes to cigarette butts, I, personally, am not a fan.

Butts are a big part of my life, one, because I work for an organization called Forget Tobacco, whose mission is to show young people how great life can be without tobacco, and two, because I’m a resident of a planet on which billions and billions of butts are littered each year.

Butts are the most littered item in the world. Thousands of spent cigarettes are littered every second and then forgotten about; however, although they’re out of our hands, they haven’t disappeared.

Cigarette filters are made of cellulose acetate, a type of plastic used to make film reels. The compound is technically biodegradable, but only under severe biological conditions, such as those in sewers.

Butts on the ground are simply broken down by the sun into smaller bits of cellulose acetate, which leach into the ground and mosey on up the roots of plants, or get washed into the river and bay.

Additionally, butts, which have trapped the hundreds of toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke, harm animals that accidentally consume them. One to five cigarettes contain the minimum lethal dose of nicotine for a dog or cat.

Ingestion is most common in young animals, (i.e., puppies and kittens, i.e., everything good in the world).

Our less furry friends are hurting, too. A study found that one cigarette butt soaked in a liter of water killed half of the fish in the tank. Butts are also a source of lasting heavy metal contamination.

So what do we do? The most important thing that we can do is not litter butts. Throw them away, or put them back in the pack, or take them home and make scummy hipster art with them — anywhere but the ground.

The second thing we can do is pick them up. It sounds gross and random, but the option exists, and it’s not that hard. Just get a bag and a glove and some high-waisted pants, (you will be bending down quite a bit), and grab butts. They are everywhere.

Combine it with a beach day or a trip to the farmers market. Do it while you’re waiting for your son or daughter or mom or dad to get out of work or school.

It doesn’t have to be an event. It could be though. What better way to teach your kids about environmental responsibility and taking initiative than a family butt cleanup followed by a trip to a local gelateria? Keep Maine strong and clean.

Butts are ugly, poisonous and expensive to clean up, so why are there so many on the ground in Brunswick? Are we so desensitized to the presence of tobacco in our community that we simply don’t notice or don’t care about the litter?

Do we assume that butts will biodegrade and accept them as part of the landscape? Maybe we feel that the filters give the ground a sort of mottled, artsy character like confetti or sprinkles on ice cream — or sorbetto.

Whatever the reason, the litter in our streets, parks and sidewalks is unacceptable, and there are things that all of us — smokers and nonsmokers — can do to clean up the tobacco litter in Brunswick and make it a safer, healthier, nicer-looking place to live, work and visit.

If you’d like a free kit with cleanup supplies, go to www.forgettobacco.com and click on Billion of Butts, or email campaigns@forgettobacco.com, and be sure to shoot us an email, tweet or wall post with the number of butts you grab.

We’re keeping track and trying to pick up 1.5 million by the end of the year.

Stacia Brezinski graduated from Brunswick High School in 2011 and now studies education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass.

letters@timesrecord.com