The clean air freaks in California have declared cigarette smoke a ‘Toxic Air Contaminate’. That’ll be coming here to Washington in under two years, without a doubt.
Speaking of cigarette smoke, now that we have an uber-restrictive smoking ban (not even within 25ft of a building) that covers the whole state (except on Casino-American land), its after-effects are being felt.
Keeping the streets of Seattle clean has gotten a lot tougher in recent weeks for the men and women in the bright green vests who are charged with sweeping up downtown.
Cigarette butts, thousands of white and tan little nubs, are scattered over the sidewalks, clustered at the base of trees and clogging up gutters.
Flattened, soaked and foul, spent smokes have become one of the city’s major litter problems over the course of little more than a month.
“The cigarette butts are up 100 percent. They’re everywhere,” said Bruce Paul, broom in one hand, garbage can in tow with the other. Paul is one of downtown’s 30 “maintenance ambassadors,” employed by downtown property owners to keep the streets clean.
Since Initiative 901 went into effect in December, banning cigars and cigarettes from bars, restaurants, hotels and all other public indoor places in the state, smokers have taken their habit outside — and are leaving their butts behind.
If you make pack a day smokers smoke outside and don’t give them a place for their filters, some of them are going to use the world as their ashtray. Even if just 10% of them are litterbugs, the litter level goes up drastically.
I’m expecting the enviro-nuts to issue a statement any day now. They will, of course, forget that the butts are usually made of cotton and will bio-degrade and they will call it something along the lines of a ‘catastrophy’.
“… some of them are going to use the world as their ashtray …”
There ain’t a smoker alive who doesn’t use the world as an ashtray. Spent butts on the street, in huge quantities, have been a problem since cigarettes were invented.
Think not? Go look at the curbs at any stoplight. Those gazillions of butts you’ll find were tossed their by drivers who could stuff them in the ashtrays that are built into their vehicles, but they don’t, do they? As they wait for the light, they suck it down to a stub, then toss it out the window. They don’t think, they just do it.
The cause of the problem is smokers’ attitude, and that’s why these laws are being passed. The increased littering as a response by smokers simply vindicates the laws. It is not non-smokers’ responsibility to provide butt holders for smokers, it is smokers’ responsibility to provide for themselves, and they just can’t be bothered.
Smokers who throw their butts out the window do hit on my other pet peeve.
I live near an intersection on a busy road… That being said, when I mow the lawn on the street portion of the property I run into hundreds of butts every week or two.
Cigarette smokers don’t give a crap where they throw their butts. Weekly I must have at least 2 butts bounce off the hood of my car during my commute.
People don’t hate smokers because it is a disgusting habit that they inflict on those of us who don’t smoke. It is because they don’t give a crap, as they flick their butts out the car window littering up the world… Ok maybe we also hate them because it is a disgusting smelly habit also…
“butts are usually made of cotton and will bio-degrade”
Yeah. Uh-huh.
Try this. Grab a big, nasty handfull of fresh, used butts, along with two or three empty packs. Put ’em in a pile on the grass in your back yard. Cover ’em with metal window screen with bricks to hold down the corners. Make sure they are exposed to the sun, wind, and rain, but can’t wash away or blow away. Then stand back, leave ’em alone, and just watch ’em “bio-degrade”.
Here’s a hint: They’ll still be there FIVE YEARS from now.
Don’t believe me? THEN TRY IT, YOU BLITHERING FOOL.
Been there, done that. Really. My neighbor wouldn’t believe it, so he tested in his own back yard. They’re still there. The butts are still butts, the empty packs are still empty packs, and they are still the omnipresent litter of utterly clueless smokers who, like the man said, don’t give a crap.
Hey there, oh so brave ‘anonymous’ commenter, you could try the exact same experiment with 10 pieces of printer paper and the paper will still be there five years from now.
Are you going to try and tell me that paper isn’t biodegradable? If you are going to try and say that cotton, grown on the stem of a plant, isn’t biodegradable, then maybe you should see a doctor about your mental disability.
You’re the blithering fool, ‘anonyomous’. You either don’t know or have forgotten exactly which one of us here works for the recycling company. I make sure the stuff gets picked, dumped and the moved to the appropriate processing facility.
One of those facilities is a landfill. It is my job to know what is and isn’t biodegradable, so why don’t you take your attitude and your overly controlled and entirely unrealistic experiments and follow the title of this post and Butt-Out.
“Hey there, oh so brave ‘anonymous’ commenter,”
And making up a name would mean I have bigger balls? You don’t need to know who I am to address the argument I make.
“Are you going to try and tell me that paper isn’t biodegradable? If you are going to try and say that cotton, grown on the stem of a plant, isn’t biodegradable, then maybe you should see a doctor about your mental disability.”
I did not say, nor did I imply, that cotton doesn’t biodegrade. I have described an experiment that you, or anyone so inclined can perform quite easily. It shows that the biodegradation of cotton takes MANY, MANY YEARS to occur. The cotton shirt and pants you’re wearing don’t dissolve right off your ass, do they? And while they are biodegrading on the sidewalks and streets, they are, and remain, LITTER. No amount of excuses can change that.
“You’re the blithering fool, ‘anonyomous’. You either don’t know or have forgotten exactly which one of us here works for the recycling company. I make sure the stuff gets picked, dumped and the moved to the appropriate processing facility.
One of those facilities is a landfill. It is my job to know what is and isn’t biodegradable …”
So why don’t you advocate that people take their butts home with them and put them in the trash so you can bury them in a landfill where they belong instead of making the excuse that “butts are usually made of cotton and will bio-degrade” so it’s OK to throw them anywhere? That ranks right up there with “it’s good for the carpet.” It’s just another excuse for not giving a crap.
LOTS of trash will biodegrade if exposed to the elements long enough, but that does not make it acceptable to throw it on the street. Cigarette butts are no exception.
“… so why don’t you take your attitude and your overly controlled and entirely unrealistic experiments and follow the title of this post and Butt-Out.”
I suggested that you simply observe what happens to butts and cigarette packs when they are disposed of as “litter” by holding them in place so they don’t blow away and you can watch them over time, and you think that’s “overly controlled and unrealistic”. Hmmm … I suggest that you perform this experiment and report back to us, many, many years from now, just how long it take for this litter to biodegrade. Nah, that would be admitting to something undesirable, wouldn’t it? Smokers don’t do that.
It’s not about my attitude, dude. It’s about Smokers’ attitude. They fill the air with poisons and they cover the ground with litter, and they get ANGRY when people suggest that such behavior is not appropriate?
What is it, dude? Oxygen deprivation?
Let me make this simple for you ‘anonymous’:
First of all, myself and a couple of other people went through a lot of time and trouble to get the comments working around here. Walking in and pissing on the door frame isn’t the best way to introduce yourself.
Secondly, did I say anything about smokers tossing their butts on the sidewalk being OK? No, I mentioned that they were biodegradable, that was it, and it was a fact. Don’t like that, tough titties, talk to Mother Nature.
Also, your experiment is wholly unrealistic and overly controlled. Like I said last time I had to come in here to correct you, if you did the same thing with paper, it would be around for a long time as well. Not getting beaten up by the other physical elements, as would happen in NATURE, makes your experiment moot. Go apologize to your neighbor for being an ass.
Next, I quit smoking back in November, so don’t come here and try to fluff up your case by tossing that crap around, it doesn’t work. I know about the fumes, I know about the mess because I did it and then stopped.
And lastly, the city is demanding that the businesses where smokers congregate (bars, clubs, restaurants, etc.) buy and place ashtrays on the city sidewalks. All at the businesses expense.
Why didn’t the city think that making people smoke outside would lead to them dropping their butts on the ground. It’s not like butts have never been put there before the smoking ban went into effect. What, did they think that since they banned the smoking that the butts would go away as well?
If I was a business owner, I’d buy the biggest and most art deco ashtray I could find to take up as much of the sidewalk as possible and park it out there for the city gov’t to see people having to walk around it.
It wouldn’t be an eyesore, so they couldn’t ask for it to be removed for aesthetic reasons and they told me to buy and ashtray and put it on the sidewalk, so that is what I did.
If the city wants to stop this problem, they need to get some of those dual purpose trashcan/ashtrays and quit shitting on the local businesses.
And if you would have read the article, you would have seen that that was my point and not that cigarette butts are biodegradable.
My congrats on your quitting. I have witnessed in other people how difficult that is and I hope quite sincerely that you continue to be successful at it.
I hope also that, in a year or two, after your body has become less contaminated and so more sensitized (and I have observed that it will likely take that long), you begin to experience what it has been like for the past 500+ years for those of us who have never been smokers. It’s not a wish out of a sense of revenge, it is rather a wish that perhaps then you’ll realize why our “attitude” is what it is.
I read the article and I share your complaints about the requirements imposed on businesses, but I carry the complaint further. I don’t think that anyone’s taxes should be used to alleviate the problem of smokers’ sociopathic behavior.
I think that ALL the expenses caused by smoking should be paid by smokers, without exception. I think heavy fines should be leavied for littering the sidewalks and streets with butts, accompanied by militant (meaning hard-nosed, no exceptions) enforcement, and let the fines pay for the butt cans. Smokers who object, saying “IT’S NOT FAIR!”, can avoid paying for them simply by using them. Sounds fair to me.
My comments were not directed toward this. They were directed toward the notion that any degree of biodegradability makes littering the streets and sidewalks with butts any less than the sociopathic behavior that it is.
I admit freely that it’s a sore point with me. I see them everywhere in great quantities, and BILLIONS more are tossed daily. They are, and will continue to be, the most ubiquitous litter that plagues our streets and sidewalks. Their biodegradability, no matter what its degree, is not justification for your objections to complaints about the problem. The complaints are real because the problem is real and biodegradability doesn’t solve or mitigate it.
You appeared to disagree, and apparently still do, which is why I commented.
Your comments were, “I’m expecting the enviro-nuts to issue a statement any day now. They will, of course, forget that the butts are usually made of cotton and will bio-degrade and they will call it something along the lines of a ‘catastrophy’.” This sounds, at least to me, remarkably like making excuses for littering. If that wasn’t your intent, then you should have chosen your words better, or simply left a gratuitous insult out of your comments altogether.
Your comment that, “…some of them are going to use the world as their ashtray” is a perfect mischaracterization of the problem. EVERY smoker uses the world as their ashtray, and some wouldn’t use a butt can if it were bolted to their belt. The problem isn’t lack of convenience, it’s attitude.
My comments were directed toward this part of your post and no further. Do you get it now?
As to my apologizing to my neighbor for being an ass, you are jumping to conclusions. You don’t know either of us, no matter what you think you know from these comments. My neighbor is an ass, big time, and I’m a really nice guy. He now understands the problem where he didn’t before but he still tosses his butts on the ground. He still doesn’t give a crap, but I do. I don’t litter.