With city approval and help from a local environmental nonprofit, a group has erected a turquoise sign along Gulfport's popular waterfront featuring photos of the two presumptive Republican and Democratic presidential nominees and asking passersby to "Vote With Your Butt."
You may ask whether, in a way, you vote with your butt every day, given indoor plumbing is connected to our collective infrastructure, which is paid for using tax dollars, and using said infrastructure is in a way an endorsement of candidates and parties more inclined to support investment in infrastructure (Like crapping outside? Vote Republican!).
Oddly enough, that's not what this sign is about.
It's actually part of a fledgling campaign by the Blue Turtle Green Bird Society launched with the help of grant money from the Tampa Bay Estuary Program.
The aim?
To get more smokers to dispose of their cigarette butts.
You may then ask, wait, people still smoke?
Indeed, they do, for some reason, and it's gross (but ultimately their decision, just as it's my decision to spend six hours on a treadmill each week).
And because there seems to be a widespread misconception that cigarette filters are made from some magic bamboo dust that disintegrates within 24 hours (or people just don't give a shit), smokers seem to throw their butts everywhere outdoors, even in grassy areas or along sandy beaches.
This is bad, as synthetic materials within spent cigarette filters can harm marine life.
Vote With Your Butt, however, invites smokers to throw their butts into one of two receptacles: one next to a photo of Hillary Clinton, the other next to a headshot of Donald Trump.
The hope is to collect cigarette-butt litter there before it gets swept "into storm-water drainage and ultimately into aquatic habitats, introducing toxins and micro-plastic debris harmful to aquatic life," reads a description on the Vote With Your Butt Facebook page.
And using this year's flamboyant presidential politics is an easy way to get the conversation started.
"It definitely is much more amusing than your everyday ho-hum ash tray or bin," said David Westmore, a spokesman for the Blue Turtle Society.
It'll be interesting to see who wins that election. Our money's on Trump.
This article appears in Jun 16-23, 2016.