RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. A small city in China has stamped out a cleanup program for cigarette butts after being inundated by them. According to local news, people flocked to a government office to turn over used butts, collecting almost 5 million in just three weeks. That mountain of butts led to suspicion that people were bringing them from out of town in order to collect the reward being offered by the program. That reward was a pack of tissues for every 50 butts. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.