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Keep America Beautiful says cigarettes are the nations number one trash problem. During the 2003 national clean up, more than 34 percent of all the litter ...

Theres lots of talk in Columbia about raising the states cigarette tax. Some want to raise it to have additional funds to put towards rising health care costs, while Gov. Mark Sanford has proposed raising it 30 cents per pack to lower income taxes.

But Rep. Rex Rice has a different idea. He has pre-filed a bill in the House that would not raise the cigarette tax, but instead would add a deposit of 60 cents to each pack.

The money would go into a separate account. Palmetto Pride, the Governors Council on Beautification and Litter, would set up and run refund sites around the state. Smokers would get their deposits back by bringing to those refund sites: their receipt; the empty pack; and 20 cigarette butts.

Randy Lawson, a smoker from Columbia, says he wouldnt bother trying to get his deposits back if the bill became law. "Theres no way Im going to hold on to cigarette butts and have them stinking up the car or anything. Its free money for the state, basically," he says.

Fellow smoker Ben Salley of Lexington agrees. "I think it has some merits," he says of the idea. "I believe that theyre not going to have many people go to the trouble of returning those packages. Itll cost more money than its worth."

All unclaimed deposits would go toward the states health care costs.

Its clear that cigarette trash is a major problem in the state. Keep America Beautiful says cigarettes are the nations number one trash problem. During the 2003 national clean up, more than 34 percent of all the litter picked up was either cigarette butts or filters.

But Sarah Robinson, public relations director for Palmetto Pride, says its too early to say whether the cigarette deposit idea would work.

"I think any program that gets people thinking about litter will help," she says. "But at this point I cant say whether or not it will have a significant impact. But, hopefully, it would."