Question That Interests Me

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I smoked for 40 years. I was raised in California where there were not only humongous fines for littering but the chance of setting a brush or forest fire if not careful (and my mother would have hit me upside the head if I littered). I would snap off the filter and grind the rest into the ground. The thin paper and tobacco are fairly quickly biodegradable and the filter I put in my pocket for later disposal.

Since moving to New England, I frequently see people throwing live butts out of their car windows. That horrifies me, but I guess the fire danger is not as troublesome in this wet climate.

As to the littering, I don't think you can put it all on smokers (I am not defending them in this). I see plenty of cans and other food and drink wrappers and containers along the road. I've seen and stepped in my share of chewing gum and less mentionable materials on the sidewalk. Any, if you want to see real litter just look at New York's Central Park after the Earth Day festivities every year.
 
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Hi, i don`t think it matters if you smoke or not,some people are just sloppy and others are not. I am a x smoker now for a year or more. I never forced myself and my habit on others. LOML does not smoke and i did. I never smoked inside this house not once. That was my own dirty little habit and i kept it to my self. Both of my children smoke,and i just pray that they wake up before it is to late. Carl
 
I, too, am a reformed smoker. Have been for about thirteen years. I never smoked indoors in the apartment where I live, but many other folks had. I use the past tense, since I bought the building six years ago and created a no-smoking policy. But I digress...

Could it be that discarding cigarette butts on the ground may be in part a learned behavior? Obviously laziness can play a role in the act, but could it also be an unconscious acceptance since it has been entrenched in our minds since childhood? I mean, most folks would not consciously litter, but flicking a cigarette butt might not even make it onto the "awareness radar". My grandfather, who smoked, used to smoke filterless cigarettes. Definitely more biodegradable. The filter cigarette, as we know it today, is a relatively new product. And if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that the "cigarette butt litter" problem is not much more than sixty years old, but the flicking habit goes back many, many generations.

That's my two pence worth. Soapbox is available for the next crier!:D
 
Bingo, Roger! I agree that many do not consider a cigarette butt to be litter. My original thought/question was to wonder why that is. While I can perhaps see that it is an unconscious reflex to toss a butt, the emptying of a car ashtray at a traffic light or in a parking lot is not. I wonder if the average "butt-flicker" (don't even go there Karl!! [:0] ) litters in other ways.

Travis, please back off. I do not want this to be a condemnation of smokers. As long as no one is blowing smoke in my face or in my house, I consider it a personal choice.
 
It is a combination of bad habit and disregard for common decency. Same thing with road littering.
A group of young people, I think from a church, recently picked up cigarette butts from around our county courthouse to demonstrate this problem. With only one hour of collecting, they picked up over 40,000 butts. FORTY THOUSAND. And, we are a relatively small community.
 
Originally posted by Tonto

Pet peeve of mine as well, two thoughts...dollar a pack tax to pay for supervision of sentence to serve types who, when caught throwing a butt get some community service by filling a 55-gallon drum with butts...I would volunteer for the state highway patrol to look for these dudes and write tickets all day...Its bad enough that the outside of most buildings stink of smoke then to have to shuffle through the discards.....smoke in your own home, leave me out of it
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better idea. There are 20 cigarettes in a pack right. That's 20 potential butts. Make all stores that sell cigarettes have to have a container to dispose of the butts, and add a refundable $.05 to each cigarette that you buy. (a dollar a pack that you get back when you bring in your 20 used butts).

I bet non-smokers will love picking up those discarded butts then.
 
Originally posted by Russianwolf

Originally posted by Tonto

Pet peeve of mine as well, two thoughts...dollar a pack tax to pay for supervision of sentence to serve types who, when caught throwing a butt get some community service by filling a 55-gallon drum with butts...I would volunteer for the state highway patrol to look for these dudes and write tickets all day...Its bad enough that the outside of most buildings stink of smoke then to have to shuffle through the discards.....smoke in your own home, leave me out of it
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better idea. There are 20 cigarettes in a pack right. That's 20 potential butts. Make all stores that sell cigarettes have to have a container to dispose of the butts, and add a refundable $.05 to each cigarette that you buy. (a dollar a pack that you get back when you bring in your 20 used butts).

I bet non-smokers will love picking up those discarded butts then.
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I for one would not pick up a butt for 5 cents apiece as I would see that as smokers paying me to clean up after them.
 
I see people just flick their butts at a can like it will magically fly inside it. Like Frank said, it is a complete disreguard for others. I never allowed smoking in my house and since an incident here, I don't allow smoking on my property either. I just don't want to breathe in anyone elses smoke.
 
I don't believe littering is acceptable period, smoker or non-smoker is not the issue for me. We don't allow smoking in our house or vehicles, we don't smoke. I think all of the smoking bans are a bunch of crap, either outlaw cigarettes or do away with the bans.

My only problem with smoking is what it's doing to my health care premiums, but that's a different discussion:D.

TM
 
A guy got out of his car, and threw his cigarette butt on the ground. I walked over to where he was preparing to enter a store, and asked if he had lost anything. He walked away with a very quizzical look on his face. The look was different when he came back out to leave and found the cigarette butt under his windshield wiper blade.

I think it is great that people provide a method to extinguish and collect others trash. But I certainly do not think that a business has the obligation to provided a cigarette tank outside of it's business. The one thing that rubs the wrong way with the throwing of butts out the car is, the individual does not want the "stinking" thing inside of their car, but its ok for the rest of us to have to deal with their trash.

I live on a very busy street, and in the spring and summer try to keep the lawn nice. I could fill garbage bags full of all the butts thrown out in just my 100 foot road frontage. It is all down to out of sight, out of mind.
 
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