Salem announces grant to make public events greener

By John Laidler, Globe Correspondent

The city recently announced a new grant award that will help Salem and Beverly make their public events "greener."

The ad hoc Citizens for Salem/Beverly Water Resources was awarded $1,500 by the New England Grassroots Fund to purchase portable pollution abatement equipment that will be available for events in both cities.

The equipment consists of approximately 20 cigarette butt receptacles and five 5-gallon water canteens. Use of the receptacles will help reduce the amount of cigarette butts that end up discarded on the ground at public events, officials said, noting that cigarette butts are the most littered item in the world. They said the water canteens will reduce the number of water bottles that are either littered, or tossed into the regular trash at events, citing figures that less than 20 percent of plastic bottles are recycled.

Members of the public will be able to pump water from the canteen into their own bottles or containers. At demonstration projects the last three years, the two cities showed that they were able to capture thousands of cigarette butts and reduce bottled water waste through using temporary and borrowed equipment at local swimming and road races, and music festivals.

The Vermont-based New England Grassroots Environmental Fund provides grant support to local environmental initiatives.