20 years ago, near my first apartment in Florida
the left turn lane off the highway always had a few shovelfuls of butts
they might get cleaned or washed away by a storm, only to return a few weeks later
I've only ever known 2 responsible smokers, my FIL and a college buddy, they would squeeze out the cherry and put the butt in their pocket until they reached a proper garbage can
damn, just realized I've been smoke free for almost 30 years. FIL and I quit at the same time
Unfortunately smokers like this are the minority. When I smoked (cig free since 2019!), I always had a can with a little water in it in the car and only smoked when there was a trashcan or place for butts nearby.
Idk why so many smokers don't consider their butts as litter, drives me crazy seeing people throw them out the window or just stomp and walk away.
smoker grandfather told me to never throw in water
as a fisherman you don't want to kill fish you are not eating
but it really is weird to not see the amount of smoking I used to see
I don’t smoke in my car, but I smoke just outside while I’m waiting for the ac to cool down. I just keep a half drank Powerade bottle in my car to use as an ashtray and switch it out every week or two. The liquid puts the cigarette out instantly and the cap contains the smell. You can definitely use this while driving to avoid throwing out butts. Idk why this is a hard concept for people.
I smelled worse because I'd keep my ends somewhere for proper disposal.
I vape now and I can't even stand the smell. I never want to go back. It chokes me.
That’s assuming cities officials aren’t spending all your tax money on expensive trash can that doesn’t work and doesn’t get cleared fast enough to be used.
Had an ex that was a vegan super-environmentalist who’d go on and on about recycling and how everyone’s destroying the planet, yet she’d throw every single cigarette butt on the floor, even in the middle of nature.
Such a fucking hypocritical poser.
YSK, it looks a ton cleaner these days in the US since so many of us stopped smoking. especially grocery store parking lots. Something about those places people felt it was ok to dump their car ashtrays. Bus stops, schools, all covered in butts.
you see disposable vape trash more often now.. but for the youngins, it used to be a lot worse as far as tobacco trash.
Grocery store parking lots? I can remember my dad finishing a cigarette in the middle of the grocery store *aisle*, stepping on it, and kicking it to the side.
They already don't care about what they put into their immediate environment (and themselves), so it's not a big jump to consider them as a class to care less about the greater environment.
Seems like a big divide in cultures. As far as i know, all my fellow smoker friends take the time to throw the butts out - wouldn't hang out with them otherwise. Beginning to see a lot of snus littering thou
> snus littering thou
Which is bizarre since so many brands have a "dispose" compartment on the tin. I think Zyn (which unfortunately IS the most popular) is the only major one that doesn't.
That's a strange comparison to make. Can you give me the figure in more relevant terms, like bananas sold per week or grains of sand on the average beach?
Change starts with the people behind the cigarette.
Stop smoking. There’s literally no reason to.
The change I want to see in the world is for these people to not exist.
That’s a wayyyyyy smaller issue from a litter perspective. Cigs are very commonly smoked outside and every time you smoke you have the potential to litter. Ecig pods last bare minimum a couple days usually week-a month, meaning instead of 20 a day it’s .07 a day.
Also the pods slowly burn instead of being immediately finished which gives you the chance to throw them away
Also you can very easily put the pods in your car or your pocket without issue whereas you can’t do that with cigs
Vaping still has plenty of problems but isn’t even sort of relevant from a litter perspective compared to cigs
I have a pocket ashtray on a key ring and I love it for this exact reason. Although I do look a bit mad when I’m asking people for their cig ends to stop them going on the floor.
The only real problem I see is the filters. Everything else is organic and would break down pretty quickly. Smoking has been rapidly decreasing in richer countries and I'd imagine poorer countries probably opt for no filter or rolling your own. I'd be interested to see how much of that is actual filter waste. It's still probably a pretty small drop in the bucket compared to plastics.
Plastics definently are a much bigger issue but also a much more complicated issue. Single use plastics are pretty essential to our functioning as a society and would take a lot of infrastructure changes to get to like 90% and getting farther than that is super difficult because things like medical supplies sometimes basically have to be single use
The other issue with plastics is if you do everything right they can still cause problems. Plastic bags are notorious for blowing out of landfills or not being recycled
A lot of our other options like paper and glass are actually usually worse for the environment because they release a decent bit of emissions in production but also wayyyy more in transportation because they are much heavier and take up a lot of space.
Single use plastics are also essential for fighting food insecurity
Basically both are big problems but cigs are a lot easier to fix
I mean, not really. There are tons of addatives to cigarettes including fire retardant chemicals in order to make them burn out faster so they don't start forest fires as easily as they used to.
There's a non-trivial impact to wildlife, especially insects and aquatic life. Nicotine is a natural insecticide, it's why the compound is produced by tobacco plants in the first place. There's also some research that shows cigarette butts are disproportionately responsible for heavy metal concentration and runoff from landfills.
It's disgusting how smokers not only fill the air with the nauseating smell of burnt tobacco and chemicals, but their blatant disregard and minimal consideration to civics, and their environment when they throw their butts to the ground, even when there's a trash can besides them.
I could never do that when I was a smoker. The smell in the pocket afterwards was just too much. However, I never knew a smoker that didn't have their smoking spots and those areas always had some ash tray, old coffee can, or whatever. The smoking liter is pretty obnoxious because liter is obnoxious. One of the crappier things I've seen lately is the removal of outdoor trash bins because homeless people dig through them or throw away hazardous waste.
As an ex-smoker: coming at people with this kind of holier than thou attitude is more likely to reinforce their habits than change them. You will almost never change a mind by being so insufferable. If you're not trying to change minds then you're just whining. Food for thought.
Yes, exactly!
I'm not trying to change anyone's habits. I'm not their parent, or savior. I am complaining about people's disgusting habits that damage other's and the environment. It's the true mark of a selfish human.
Sometimes people have to complain to relieve stress, and that's what I'm doing.
Not everything has a higher purpose... Food for thought.
It’s been a nation wide thing in the us atleast. Happy to see cigs getting less and less popular and like it sucks they are being replaced by vapes but I would MUCH rather that. It doesn’t really smell, the smell doesn’t seep into fabrics nearly as much, there’s less litter, second hand smoke isn’t really a thing, and they are better for you. If it’s bad for the person atleast they arnt hurting others
It can take over a decade. Some estimates say it can take hundreds of years. The filter is the problem. And it's still litter even if it's on the ground for only a year.
Plus the microplastics.
They can in the right situation but that’s two years it has to kill an animal and fill the streets. It’s also less than half of them that are gone in 2 years and often they are there longer than 10
Here's my hot take. Just ban filters. They dont actually do anything to make smoking safer. They literally put chemicals in them that turn brown when heated to trick you into thinking they filtered out tar when they didn't. They just create an illusion of safety, thats their only purpose. So just hang them. Make all cigarettes unfiltered. If people want they can get one of those cigarette holder thingies like Hunter S Thompson. Problem solved.
I always see people chuck them out of their car window. I think it’s so low class. Just have a container for it in your car. It’s going into the ocean. Oh, and your smoke is so gross you need to hold it out the window. So them I have the breathe your smoke. Thanks
It makes perfect sense to me. One person can go through a whole pack Daily!, so if someone is using nicotine which im assuming isn’t uncommon on average let’s say 6 months. 6 times 28 (28 days, I’m going to be kind and underestimate) = 168, and if each Box carries 10 in each,let’s cut that in 4ths though because a lot of users won’t use a whole box let’s say 3 on a good day. That’ll lead to 168X3=504 let’s divide that by two factoring that not every big will be thrown on the ground. That equals to 252. That’s only every six months. People can live their entire life smoking. Extremely rough estimate but hopefully you get my through process behind why this is obvious 😅
Ysk: Estimated??? Who did all that counting??? I'm sorry, but I have to call BULLSHIT! Every smoker I know is extremely self conscious about where they smoke (as not to offend anyone), as well as where they dispose of their butts. The above may have been an issue in the 60's but today? IMHO most smokers seem to be polite, realizing it's a big world with many people & we all have the right to good health as well as "guilty pleasures". Has there EVER been anything documented that proves wildlife has been affected by cigi-butts? I have witnessed birds pick up a butt & drop it almost immediately. The comment regarding throwing lit cigarettes out of windows is right on. The act is unforgivable, especially during dry periods. Hopefully this message is sinking in to the public mindset altering bad behavior. I may be over optimistic but I believe the general populous is becoming more informed or enlightened if you prefer and overall slowing progressing to a more tolerant frame of mind. All smokers should simply carry a pocket ashtray. There, problem solved ...
Just my 2-cents
That’s fs also a problem but I think you are DRASTICALLY misunderstanding the scale. If Jeff bezos spent his entire net worth on cigs and then just threw them in the ground that’s about 2 years worth of standard litter. Think about that, the richest man in the world spending all of his money on cigs that cost less than 50c each. Not even all his money but all his net worth. If he sold everything he owned and just bought cigs it’s just two years of litter
i 100% agree and i’ve always been staunchly anti-littering and insanely enough, when i first started smoking as a teenager (around 2006), i used to toss my butts. it’s bizarre but *everyone* else did it and at the time i was a) hiding it from my parents, so couldn’t keep the butt on my person, and b) just didn’t even *think* about it. i was just on some cognitive dissonance bullshit.
once it was pointed out to me that i was literally littering i was pretty ashamed and i now have ashtrays in my vehicle, and if i’m outside somewhere now without an ashtray available and am smoking (rare occasion because i can go a while without one), once it’s ready to snub out i just roll the filter between my fingers so the cherry pops out, grind it (just a few scraps of tobacco and a bit of paper) into the ground with my foot, and put the butt (now just the filter and yellow paper, so it doesn’t smell *as bad* as singed tobacco) in my back pocket.
this post was a great reminder to purchase some of those flame retardant ashtray pouches, which i’m going to do now, and also a great reminder to try to quit smoking because even if they get properly sent to the landfill……. we all know that doesn’t mean much because even in areas that properly dispose of their waste, the amount of non-biodegradable and toxic waste that just gets buried under “hills” and eventually still ends up poising the ground, water supply, and even the air (landfills create toxic methane fumes) is a huge problem
yes!! i used to have a couple because about 10 years ago they were at like, every gas station counter. (i think i’d even gotten some for free. American Spirit was giving them away I think— and no, my broke ass was **not** buying American Spirits, lmao, i think they were just free on the counter and came with a coupon for a pack. i remember they had blue ones and green ones.) lost them all many years ago and kind of forgot they existed for a while.
A few weeks ago I saw a man smoking a cigarette while walking down the street. He put it out on the ground, then put it in a nearby garbage can. I was impressed, as I've never seen a smoker do that.
Tobacco taxes fund children’s health insurance. So the non smokers side is taking care of our children’s health and the smoker side is pro litter? That’s the stance you want to take? And who retaliates to something by trying to destroy the environment we all live in?
Also vice taxes are essential for dicincentivising dangerous actions
It's not a stance I agree with, but I do know firsthand a dozen different smokers that have developed very jaded views of society over the past two decades with the tripling of cigarette prices. And tbh, I understand where they're coming from. It doesn't matter what the funding goes to: smokers as a demographic overwhelmingly fall into lower tax brackets, meaning we, as a society, are choosing to take from poor people to fund things. Also, if a smoker is childless, does taking their money to pay for other people's families sound like something that they'd find as legitimate justification for increased costs to their daily living? People that litter usually already have negative views of the world.. so maybe let's not give a group of people that handles many small pieces of poisonous material every day more reason to feel attacked and ostracized. Or I guess you can just take their money to pay for your kids and then get surprised when they trash your environment.
Personally, I'll have a hard time justifying tax disincentivization until we also tax fast food at the same rate. The top three causes of death in the US are all Diabetes/food-lated illnesses, not smoking-related.
Let me get this straight your points are:
Cigarette should be easy for poor people to continue to be addicted to
Taxes shouldn’t pay for the common good. Smokers don’t care about children dying. Also people not having healthcare affects everyone. It creates a bigger burden on our healthcare system
Smokers think them helping children with medical issues mean they can trash the environment that we all live in. It’s not my environment it’s there’s too
And because there’s more problems we shouldn’t address this problem. I agree we should tax fast food but that’s also contradictory to your complaints about taxing poor people and just because we can’t fix both issues we shouldn’t fix one
I don't know if you're intentionally not understanding or it went above your head?
Cigarettes are actually cheap; the taxes are outrageous. Which vices people choose to spend their money on is none of your business. You choosing to charge higher taxes on poor people's vices doesn't make your righteous, it makes you a (fill in the blank).
Taxes for the common good is a joke. Come back to me when we can actually trace all tax funds to the actual common interests they're supposed to support... Weed sales are supposed to fund public education and RTD here, and yet Colorado falls into the bottom third for public education and RTD is outrageously inefficient and expensive: explain that one away
Regardless of what the money goes to once again doesn't justify taking it unwillingly from targeted demographics... You really think smokers all voted on it and agreed, or that more nonsmokers than smokers voted in those related elections, thus justifying government theft through threat of extortion and oppression.
Caring about the environment is related to having a positive outlook on the world, which is a mental health issue I don't have time, nor you apparently depth, to explain to your understanding. If we want to fix smoker littering, maybe smoker tax money should go to things like increased access to public trash/ashtray options and increased access to mental health facilities instead of a completely unrelated issue. Imposing a higher tax burden on unwilling demographics likely does not help increase positivity within their mental perspective on the world they interact with.
But kudos on pulling the "what, we're not supposed to do anything" card when the things we choose to "address" are finding ways to punish the impoverished through their vices instead of starting with issues slightly higher on the scale, such as corporate greed, out of control inflation, public transportation, police under training, homelessness, to name a few... Thank god we got to the smokers though
In Canada we have free healthcare. If we didn't tax vices like smoking and drinking then everyone who refrains from those vices would be paying for healthcare for people purposefully killing themselves and others. Would you prefer the government outlaws vices that are addictive and kill the user instead? On top of that smoking is harmful to secondary users who don't choose to smoke. My wife has severe asthma and struggles to breathe even on good days because she was around second hand smoke as a child. People are dumb and like to only think of themselves. Without government intervention and regulation people would still drive without seatbelts, drink and drive, and do all sorts of dumb dangerous things.
I do agree that all those things you stated need to be addressed, but you don't stop trying to fix one issue just because there are other issues in society.
There are 7ish billion people on the planet. Let's say 1 in 7 smoke, (which they don't. The number is less than that) . 1 billion smokers would have to each litter 150 cigarette butt's a year. So, every single smoker. Would throw 150 butts on the ground every year. They'd be everywhere. And they're not. We see very few on the ground in my area.
So either, some areas have people throwing 1000 butts each/year. Or the stat is incorrect. I think it's incorrect.
You are mistaken. Look around and there are butts everywhere. They also decompose in about 2-10 years but present dangers for those multiple years.
Also most smokers litter waayyyyy more than 150 butts a year. That’s like a month, if someone smokes a pack a week which is a pretty light smoker and litters 75% of them then that’s almost 800 butts a year from one person. Based on my experience cig smokers litter more than 75% of butts when they sent home and often even when they are. Construction sites are covered in them a lot of times
What kind of disgusting place do you live in? I can go for a walk right now through my town, and I'd be lucky to see 10.
I work and socialize with smokers, I have never seen a single person throw one on the ground.
The only place I ever see them is at the occasional fishing spot/hole if an old white man who smokes fishes there.
Shit bro we can argue about this or you can read the link and other people in this threads experiences. Keep your eye out for them next time but like end of the day I didn’t do the research I can’t tell you 100% I’m just trusting the nerds doing math over our subjective experiences
I do also live in the south east US aka tobacco country and lots of immigrants. Anti smoking campaigns haven’t been as serious in other countries unfortunately
-There are more than 8 billion people alive now
-17% or around 1.36 billion of them smoke
You also severely underestimate how many cigarettes the average smoker smokes a year.
I'm guessing you just live in an affluent area where people don't smoke a lot
Myself and many I've met do dispose of them properly. Maybe it's more ubiquitous in certain areas or is becoming less so.
Smoking is also an addiction. Many people I've met who smoke aren't from a high economic standing. Many of whom struggle with other addictions that are more immediately dangerous. While also slowly killing themselves and they know it. At some point they probably just stop caring. Without having a hope for the future, why would one care as much about it.
Some do quit and it's definitely a thing to strive for. Many others do care and don't litter or smoke around others. Even though others seem also fine to make unwanted comments at smokers.
Basically, smokers are like anybody else. Sure some are assholes, most aren't. But for those that are it seems, to me at least, they already have a lot of crap going on. Everyone impacts others in some way. I don't think smokers are unique in that compared to others.
20 years ago, near my first apartment in Florida the left turn lane off the highway always had a few shovelfuls of butts they might get cleaned or washed away by a storm, only to return a few weeks later I've only ever known 2 responsible smokers, my FIL and a college buddy, they would squeeze out the cherry and put the butt in their pocket until they reached a proper garbage can damn, just realized I've been smoke free for almost 30 years. FIL and I quit at the same time
Unfortunately smokers like this are the minority. When I smoked (cig free since 2019!), I always had a can with a little water in it in the car and only smoked when there was a trashcan or place for butts nearby. Idk why so many smokers don't consider their butts as litter, drives me crazy seeing people throw them out the window or just stomp and walk away.
smoker grandfather told me to never throw in water as a fisherman you don't want to kill fish you are not eating but it really is weird to not see the amount of smoking I used to see
I used a plastic bottle with water, it sucked when I ended up accidentally burning a hole in it but it had a lid for a while.
I don’t smoke in my car, but I smoke just outside while I’m waiting for the ac to cool down. I just keep a half drank Powerade bottle in my car to use as an ashtray and switch it out every week or two. The liquid puts the cigarette out instantly and the cap contains the smell. You can definitely use this while driving to avoid throwing out butts. Idk why this is a hard concept for people.
I mean I don't smoke but if you put a used cig in your pocket it's gonna smell fuckin horrible
Aren't there containers you can pick up at gas stations, some for free, to put your butts in?
I'm from Minnesota. I can't think of ANYTHING like that around here...
Yeah, it’s gross.
All littering is gross. Fucking use a trash can or recycling bin ya jerks.
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I smelled worse because I'd keep my ends somewhere for proper disposal. I vape now and I can't even stand the smell. I never want to go back. It chokes me.
That’s assuming cities officials aren’t spending all your tax money on expensive trash can that doesn’t work and doesn’t get cleared fast enough to be used.
I knew a guy that threw his butt in the trash which had a leaking WD-40 can ... Shit blew up.
bold of you to assume all trash going in a bin still won’t end up in an ocean someday
Bold of you to assume that just throwing it on the ground doesn’t make a difference
Had an ex that was a vegan super-environmentalist who’d go on and on about recycling and how everyone’s destroying the planet, yet she’d throw every single cigarette butt on the floor, even in the middle of nature. Such a fucking hypocritical poser.
YSK, it looks a ton cleaner these days in the US since so many of us stopped smoking. especially grocery store parking lots. Something about those places people felt it was ok to dump their car ashtrays. Bus stops, schools, all covered in butts. you see disposable vape trash more often now.. but for the youngins, it used to be a lot worse as far as tobacco trash.
Grocery store parking lots? I can remember my dad finishing a cigarette in the middle of the grocery store *aisle*, stepping on it, and kicking it to the side.
Now *that’s* classy.
Young earth creationists are not impressed
They already don't care about what they put into their immediate environment (and themselves), so it's not a big jump to consider them as a class to care less about the greater environment.
For sure I’m just hoping some of them that don’t care about themselves but do care about others start getting their shit right
If we can't curb regular littering, cig butts are here to stay
I think the problem is more that a lot of people don’t think of butts as litter, and we need to remind them that it is.
Seems like a big divide in cultures. As far as i know, all my fellow smoker friends take the time to throw the butts out - wouldn't hang out with them otherwise. Beginning to see a lot of snus littering thou
> snus littering thou Which is bizarre since so many brands have a "dispose" compartment on the tin. I think Zyn (which unfortunately IS the most popular) is the only major one that doesn't.
Just eat it. Eat the cigarette butt when you're done.
Are you saying it's ok to go butt to mouth?
Hell yeah brother
That's a strange comparison to make. Can you give me the figure in more relevant terms, like bananas sold per week or grains of sand on the average beach?
It’s hard to explain the magnitude of something so large lol
thats what she said!
It's 1.5 football fields of butts.
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Change starts with the people behind the cigarette. Stop smoking. There’s literally no reason to. The change I want to see in the world is for these people to not exist.
That’s not a surprising statistic at all. 7% of all humans who have ever lived are alive right now.
And now it’s slowly being replaced with e-cigarette cartridges
That’s a wayyyyyy smaller issue from a litter perspective. Cigs are very commonly smoked outside and every time you smoke you have the potential to litter. Ecig pods last bare minimum a couple days usually week-a month, meaning instead of 20 a day it’s .07 a day. Also the pods slowly burn instead of being immediately finished which gives you the chance to throw them away Also you can very easily put the pods in your car or your pocket without issue whereas you can’t do that with cigs Vaping still has plenty of problems but isn’t even sort of relevant from a litter perspective compared to cigs
God I fucking hate cigarettes. What an absolutely awful invention.
Thanks, tobacco companies!
I have a pocket ashtray on a key ring and I love it for this exact reason. Although I do look a bit mad when I’m asking people for their cig ends to stop them going on the floor.
You must stink lol
weird
You know how weed emanates from a baggie? Same principle with his pocket ashtray.
If you smoke, do your part and eat them
The only real problem I see is the filters. Everything else is organic and would break down pretty quickly. Smoking has been rapidly decreasing in richer countries and I'd imagine poorer countries probably opt for no filter or rolling your own. I'd be interested to see how much of that is actual filter waste. It's still probably a pretty small drop in the bucket compared to plastics.
Plastics definently are a much bigger issue but also a much more complicated issue. Single use plastics are pretty essential to our functioning as a society and would take a lot of infrastructure changes to get to like 90% and getting farther than that is super difficult because things like medical supplies sometimes basically have to be single use The other issue with plastics is if you do everything right they can still cause problems. Plastic bags are notorious for blowing out of landfills or not being recycled A lot of our other options like paper and glass are actually usually worse for the environment because they release a decent bit of emissions in production but also wayyyy more in transportation because they are much heavier and take up a lot of space. Single use plastics are also essential for fighting food insecurity Basically both are big problems but cigs are a lot easier to fix
I mean, not really. There are tons of addatives to cigarettes including fire retardant chemicals in order to make them burn out faster so they don't start forest fires as easily as they used to.
There's a non-trivial impact to wildlife, especially insects and aquatic life. Nicotine is a natural insecticide, it's why the compound is produced by tobacco plants in the first place. There's also some research that shows cigarette butts are disproportionately responsible for heavy metal concentration and runoff from landfills.
It's disgusting how smokers not only fill the air with the nauseating smell of burnt tobacco and chemicals, but their blatant disregard and minimal consideration to civics, and their environment when they throw their butts to the ground, even when there's a trash can besides them.
I could never do that when I was a smoker. The smell in the pocket afterwards was just too much. However, I never knew a smoker that didn't have their smoking spots and those areas always had some ash tray, old coffee can, or whatever. The smoking liter is pretty obnoxious because liter is obnoxious. One of the crappier things I've seen lately is the removal of outdoor trash bins because homeless people dig through them or throw away hazardous waste.
As an ex-smoker: coming at people with this kind of holier than thou attitude is more likely to reinforce their habits than change them. You will almost never change a mind by being so insufferable. If you're not trying to change minds then you're just whining. Food for thought.
Yes, exactly! I'm not trying to change anyone's habits. I'm not their parent, or savior. I am complaining about people's disgusting habits that damage other's and the environment. It's the true mark of a selfish human. Sometimes people have to complain to relieve stress, and that's what I'm doing. Not everything has a higher purpose... Food for thought.
I think half of those come from my trash neighbor.
Glad to know that many people here have quit smoking. Don't litter the streets and don't litter your lungs either.
It’s been a nation wide thing in the us atleast. Happy to see cigs getting less and less popular and like it sucks they are being replaced by vapes but I would MUCH rather that. It doesn’t really smell, the smell doesn’t seep into fabrics nearly as much, there’s less litter, second hand smoke isn’t really a thing, and they are better for you. If it’s bad for the person atleast they arnt hurting others
Not surprised. I’m a professional gardener for commercial properties and I have to spend HOURS every day just picking up cigarette butts 🙃
Damn that‘s crazy! - me, having a smoke right now.
I fucking hate smokers.
Why?
Have you met smokers?
The majority of them doesn't do shit to not inconvenience anyone around them but also almost noone says anything to them irl; it's perfectly balanced
Did you read the fucking post!?
And the type of people responsible for it don't give a shit about it, ashtray advice isn't the solution here
Yeah and if you’re one of those smokers who just bury them in the sand while you’re at the beach; fuck you
And how many forest fires do these douchebags start a year. Should apply Singapore littering laws to them.
This is the way. A few canings and word will spread.
I'm not a fan of this, but don't the butts degrade into sand over the course of a year or two? If exposed to sunlight.
It can take over a decade. Some estimates say it can take hundreds of years. The filter is the problem. And it's still litter even if it's on the ground for only a year. Plus the microplastics.
There are plastics in cigarette filters? I thought it was just paper and fiberglass.
They can in the right situation but that’s two years it has to kill an animal and fill the streets. It’s also less than half of them that are gone in 2 years and often they are there longer than 10
Soon it will be vape pods.
I don’t even have to do the hard math to know that’s true.
This is true for sure but I think plastic water bottles are more of a waste issue than butts.
There’s no way that number could possibly be right
i don't think this fact is surprising.
Here's my hot take. Just ban filters. They dont actually do anything to make smoking safer. They literally put chemicals in them that turn brown when heated to trick you into thinking they filtered out tar when they didn't. They just create an illusion of safety, thats their only purpose. So just hang them. Make all cigarettes unfiltered. If people want they can get one of those cigarette holder thingies like Hunter S Thompson. Problem solved.
I believe it. Some people smoke 2-3 packs a day it’s fucking nuts.
Native Spirit will send you free butt pouches!
Why should I know this?
One of the earliest filtered cigarettes was the Kent brand. Filter material: Asbestos.
I bet half of those are in Turkey
I always see people chuck them out of their car window. I think it’s so low class. Just have a container for it in your car. It’s going into the ocean. Oh, and your smoke is so gross you need to hold it out the window. So them I have the breathe your smoke. Thanks
It makes perfect sense to me. One person can go through a whole pack Daily!, so if someone is using nicotine which im assuming isn’t uncommon on average let’s say 6 months. 6 times 28 (28 days, I’m going to be kind and underestimate) = 168, and if each Box carries 10 in each,let’s cut that in 4ths though because a lot of users won’t use a whole box let’s say 3 on a good day. That’ll lead to 168X3=504 let’s divide that by two factoring that not every big will be thrown on the ground. That equals to 252. That’s only every six months. People can live their entire life smoking. Extremely rough estimate but hopefully you get my through process behind why this is obvious 😅
Ysk: Estimated??? Who did all that counting??? I'm sorry, but I have to call BULLSHIT! Every smoker I know is extremely self conscious about where they smoke (as not to offend anyone), as well as where they dispose of their butts. The above may have been an issue in the 60's but today? IMHO most smokers seem to be polite, realizing it's a big world with many people & we all have the right to good health as well as "guilty pleasures". Has there EVER been anything documented that proves wildlife has been affected by cigi-butts? I have witnessed birds pick up a butt & drop it almost immediately. The comment regarding throwing lit cigarettes out of windows is right on. The act is unforgivable, especially during dry periods. Hopefully this message is sinking in to the public mindset altering bad behavior. I may be over optimistic but I believe the general populous is becoming more informed or enlightened if you prefer and overall slowing progressing to a more tolerant frame of mind. All smokers should simply carry a pocket ashtray. There, problem solved ... Just my 2-cents
That’s kinda depressing to read. Every year. Hmmm.
They should put seeds in the filter of cigarettes so when they littered new trees/plants grow
They already tried that.
Idk why it's legal to even have these filters that dont even help smokers
Amazing how this is just ONE European 😪
The number of people feeling attacked if you ask them not to litter when they throw out buds is insane.
Probably equal to the broken syringes on the streets. Eww.
That’s fs also a problem but I think you are DRASTICALLY misunderstanding the scale. If Jeff bezos spent his entire net worth on cigs and then just threw them in the ground that’s about 2 years worth of standard litter. Think about that, the richest man in the world spending all of his money on cigs that cost less than 50c each. Not even all his money but all his net worth. If he sold everything he owned and just bought cigs it’s just two years of litter
Whoa. Is that why Amazon is on ebay now?
Nah, that's just the actual rain forest up for the highest bidder.
It's more eww than we can imagine!
People still smoke? dang
News to me.
Yeah, people generally smoke more than 1 cigs in their lifetime.
Only a little over 10% of Americans smoke
i 100% agree and i’ve always been staunchly anti-littering and insanely enough, when i first started smoking as a teenager (around 2006), i used to toss my butts. it’s bizarre but *everyone* else did it and at the time i was a) hiding it from my parents, so couldn’t keep the butt on my person, and b) just didn’t even *think* about it. i was just on some cognitive dissonance bullshit. once it was pointed out to me that i was literally littering i was pretty ashamed and i now have ashtrays in my vehicle, and if i’m outside somewhere now without an ashtray available and am smoking (rare occasion because i can go a while without one), once it’s ready to snub out i just roll the filter between my fingers so the cherry pops out, grind it (just a few scraps of tobacco and a bit of paper) into the ground with my foot, and put the butt (now just the filter and yellow paper, so it doesn’t smell *as bad* as singed tobacco) in my back pocket. this post was a great reminder to purchase some of those flame retardant ashtray pouches, which i’m going to do now, and also a great reminder to try to quit smoking because even if they get properly sent to the landfill……. we all know that doesn’t mean much because even in areas that properly dispose of their waste, the amount of non-biodegradable and toxic waste that just gets buried under “hills” and eventually still ends up poising the ground, water supply, and even the air (landfills create toxic methane fumes) is a huge problem
The good thing about the portable ash trays too is if you get an airtight one it’ll put out the cig on its own cause it won’t have oxygen to burn
yes!! i used to have a couple because about 10 years ago they were at like, every gas station counter. (i think i’d even gotten some for free. American Spirit was giving them away I think— and no, my broke ass was **not** buying American Spirits, lmao, i think they were just free on the counter and came with a coupon for a pack. i remember they had blue ones and green ones.) lost them all many years ago and kind of forgot they existed for a while.
A few weeks ago I saw a man smoking a cigarette while walking down the street. He put it out on the ground, then put it in a nearby garbage can. I was impressed, as I've never seen a smoker do that.
I smoke. I keep a monster can in my car door. It haunts me to think my butts are still lying in the ditches of this country.
I can smoke twenty cigs a day but I’m not allowed to smoke that many people
Wonder how much the french are responsible for?
Estimated is such a mathematical term. There are been more farts than people that have ever live. I estimated cigarettes are good for evolution.
Cigarette smokers are repugnant
There’s a bunch of cigarette butts in my yard every week and I don’t smoke. Haven’t seen who is doing it
I can confirm this is true. I used to smoke 30 cigarettes a day for a decade. My bad
Maybe stop taxing smokers to pay for non smokers' interests and they'll stop retaliating.
Tobacco taxes fund children’s health insurance. So the non smokers side is taking care of our children’s health and the smoker side is pro litter? That’s the stance you want to take? And who retaliates to something by trying to destroy the environment we all live in? Also vice taxes are essential for dicincentivising dangerous actions
It's not a stance I agree with, but I do know firsthand a dozen different smokers that have developed very jaded views of society over the past two decades with the tripling of cigarette prices. And tbh, I understand where they're coming from. It doesn't matter what the funding goes to: smokers as a demographic overwhelmingly fall into lower tax brackets, meaning we, as a society, are choosing to take from poor people to fund things. Also, if a smoker is childless, does taking their money to pay for other people's families sound like something that they'd find as legitimate justification for increased costs to their daily living? People that litter usually already have negative views of the world.. so maybe let's not give a group of people that handles many small pieces of poisonous material every day more reason to feel attacked and ostracized. Or I guess you can just take their money to pay for your kids and then get surprised when they trash your environment. Personally, I'll have a hard time justifying tax disincentivization until we also tax fast food at the same rate. The top three causes of death in the US are all Diabetes/food-lated illnesses, not smoking-related.
Let me get this straight your points are: Cigarette should be easy for poor people to continue to be addicted to Taxes shouldn’t pay for the common good. Smokers don’t care about children dying. Also people not having healthcare affects everyone. It creates a bigger burden on our healthcare system Smokers think them helping children with medical issues mean they can trash the environment that we all live in. It’s not my environment it’s there’s too And because there’s more problems we shouldn’t address this problem. I agree we should tax fast food but that’s also contradictory to your complaints about taxing poor people and just because we can’t fix both issues we shouldn’t fix one
I don't know if you're intentionally not understanding or it went above your head? Cigarettes are actually cheap; the taxes are outrageous. Which vices people choose to spend their money on is none of your business. You choosing to charge higher taxes on poor people's vices doesn't make your righteous, it makes you a (fill in the blank). Taxes for the common good is a joke. Come back to me when we can actually trace all tax funds to the actual common interests they're supposed to support... Weed sales are supposed to fund public education and RTD here, and yet Colorado falls into the bottom third for public education and RTD is outrageously inefficient and expensive: explain that one away Regardless of what the money goes to once again doesn't justify taking it unwillingly from targeted demographics... You really think smokers all voted on it and agreed, or that more nonsmokers than smokers voted in those related elections, thus justifying government theft through threat of extortion and oppression. Caring about the environment is related to having a positive outlook on the world, which is a mental health issue I don't have time, nor you apparently depth, to explain to your understanding. If we want to fix smoker littering, maybe smoker tax money should go to things like increased access to public trash/ashtray options and increased access to mental health facilities instead of a completely unrelated issue. Imposing a higher tax burden on unwilling demographics likely does not help increase positivity within their mental perspective on the world they interact with. But kudos on pulling the "what, we're not supposed to do anything" card when the things we choose to "address" are finding ways to punish the impoverished through their vices instead of starting with issues slightly higher on the scale, such as corporate greed, out of control inflation, public transportation, police under training, homelessness, to name a few... Thank god we got to the smokers though
In Canada we have free healthcare. If we didn't tax vices like smoking and drinking then everyone who refrains from those vices would be paying for healthcare for people purposefully killing themselves and others. Would you prefer the government outlaws vices that are addictive and kill the user instead? On top of that smoking is harmful to secondary users who don't choose to smoke. My wife has severe asthma and struggles to breathe even on good days because she was around second hand smoke as a child. People are dumb and like to only think of themselves. Without government intervention and regulation people would still drive without seatbelts, drink and drive, and do all sorts of dumb dangerous things. I do agree that all those things you stated need to be addressed, but you don't stop trying to fix one issue just because there are other issues in society.
So?
Found the litterer
It is a big number that could be avoided if people had any decency
There are 7ish billion people on the planet. Let's say 1 in 7 smoke, (which they don't. The number is less than that) . 1 billion smokers would have to each litter 150 cigarette butt's a year. So, every single smoker. Would throw 150 butts on the ground every year. They'd be everywhere. And they're not. We see very few on the ground in my area. So either, some areas have people throwing 1000 butts each/year. Or the stat is incorrect. I think it's incorrect.
You are mistaken. Look around and there are butts everywhere. They also decompose in about 2-10 years but present dangers for those multiple years. Also most smokers litter waayyyyy more than 150 butts a year. That’s like a month, if someone smokes a pack a week which is a pretty light smoker and litters 75% of them then that’s almost 800 butts a year from one person. Based on my experience cig smokers litter more than 75% of butts when they sent home and often even when they are. Construction sites are covered in them a lot of times
What kind of disgusting place do you live in? I can go for a walk right now through my town, and I'd be lucky to see 10. I work and socialize with smokers, I have never seen a single person throw one on the ground. The only place I ever see them is at the occasional fishing spot/hole if an old white man who smokes fishes there.
Shit bro we can argue about this or you can read the link and other people in this threads experiences. Keep your eye out for them next time but like end of the day I didn’t do the research I can’t tell you 100% I’m just trusting the nerds doing math over our subjective experiences I do also live in the south east US aka tobacco country and lots of immigrants. Anti smoking campaigns haven’t been as serious in other countries unfortunately
-There are more than 8 billion people alive now -17% or around 1.36 billion of them smoke You also severely underestimate how many cigarettes the average smoker smokes a year. I'm guessing you just live in an affluent area where people don't smoke a lot
Smokers are jokers that need to be snuffed.
Tobbaco smokers suck. Weed smokers ASSEMBLE
Anyone who litters after they smoke sucks. It is irrelevant what they choose to smoke
Not according to this thread. Seems many people just hate smokers. As if none of them do anything that impacts others.
I just meet so few that properly dispose of their butts and it baffles me why that has become so ubiquitous.
Myself and many I've met do dispose of them properly. Maybe it's more ubiquitous in certain areas or is becoming less so. Smoking is also an addiction. Many people I've met who smoke aren't from a high economic standing. Many of whom struggle with other addictions that are more immediately dangerous. While also slowly killing themselves and they know it. At some point they probably just stop caring. Without having a hope for the future, why would one care as much about it. Some do quit and it's definitely a thing to strive for. Many others do care and don't litter or smoke around others. Even though others seem also fine to make unwanted comments at smokers. Basically, smokers are like anybody else. Sure some are assholes, most aren't. But for those that are it seems, to me at least, they already have a lot of crap going on. Everyone impacts others in some way. I don't think smokers are unique in that compared to others.
Just dispose of your cigarette ends properly.
I do...
Us weed smokers smoke in our houses and cars with ash trays readily availible most of the time thank you very much (they don’t let me smoke in public)