An anti-litter campaign for Winnipeg's Osborne Village is aimed at reducing cigarette butts on the streets. (Toban Dyck/CBC)

Residents of Winnipeg's Osborne Village are being asked to butt out their cigarettes in special containers as part of an effort to tidy-up the neighbourhood.

Two groups — Take Pride Winnipeg and the Osborne Village Biz — are installing cigarette litter receptacles in seven locations.

Tom Ethans, the executive director of the Take Pride group, told CBC News that cigarette butts account for 28 per cent of litter on city streets.

Volunteers picked up 10,000 cigarette butts from the streets of Osborne Village in just one day last summer, he noted.

"It is very gross," Ethans said Friday. "And people don't understand that cigarette butts do not biodegrade. They end up in our sewer systems, in our rivers and in our lakes."

The seven receptacles cost a total of around $2,000.

"I'll use them, yes," Marcel Goulet said Friday. "If I'm almost done my cigarette, [I'll] just throw it in there and just keep on going. Takes two seconds."

In addition to the receptacles, 5,000 special cigarette pouches are being distributed to smokers in the Village.

The pouches can be used for ashes and to hold a cigarette until the smoker reaches a receptacle.

They were donated by Keep America Beautiful, a U.S. organization with links in Canada, including Winnipeg, Hamilton and St. John's.