The World Is Not Your Goddamn Ashtray
I saw it last week on Lincoln Boulevard, the girl in the Rav4 smoking a cigarette, then tossing it out the window. I normally take pictures of jerks like this -- and I did -- but only with my cell phone camera (yes, of course I was stopped at the time) because I have the dreaded Canon "lens error" so I'm without my camera for the first time in probably five years (but that's another story, now playing out, soon to be told).
Back on the topic of butt litter, I really want to thank the person who left the butt on the ground just outside my front gate. Did you think that would make my walk outside prettier?
It bothers the LAT's David Lazarus, too. He writes:
"For people who smoke, tossing a butt on the ground is part of the whole ritual," said Thomas Novotny, a professor of epidemiology at UC San Francisco who focuses on cigarette butts. "It's not considered litter."In fact, cigarette butts are among the most common forms of litter nationwide. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Works estimates that local smokers drop 600,000 butts on the ground every month, or more than 7 million a year.
"By a mile, the No. 1 item that we find at beach cleanups is cigarette butts," said Mark Gold, president of Heal the Bay, a Southern California environmental advocacy group.
According to Keep America Beautiful, a nonprofit group that compiles statistics from thousands of community cleanups nationwide, cigarette butts account for about a third of all litter in the United States.
In urban areas, the group says, cigarette butts represent as much as half of all litter on streets and sidewalks.
Put another way, the nearly 370 billion filtered cigarettes smoked in the U.S. each year result in about 135 million pounds of butts littering the landscape. Worldwide, the more than 5 trillion cigarettes consumed annually create more than 2 billion pounds of butts.
"It's a form of blight," said UCSF's Novotny.
Butts are also a long-term and potentially hazardous pollutant. Cigarette filters are made primarily of a plastic-like material called cellulose acetate. Contrary to what some smokers may believe, this material isn't biodegradable. Rather, cigarette filters gradually break down over as much as a dozen years into smaller particles that remain in the environment.
According to Novotny, the typical cigarette butt contains nicotine, arsenic, mercury, lead, cadmium, acetone and vinyl chloride.
"There have been cases," he said, "where kids have eaten cigarette butts and gotten nicotine poisoning. It's reasonable to think that marine animals face a similar risk."
Even Philip Morris, the country's leading cigarette manufacturer, acknowledges on its website that "cigarette butt litter is a significant contributor to litter in our environment today."
Bill Phelps, a spokesman for Altria Group Inc., Philip Morris' parent company, said the company was trying to get the word out to smokers that littering is a no-no.
He said Philip Morris prints the words "please do not litter" on all its cigarette packs and provides funds to Keep America Beautiful to support the group's efforts. The company also offers "portable litter devices" to customers so they can carry butts in their pocket until an ashtray or garbage can becomes available.
"The effort to reduce cigarette butt litter is part of a broader goal of reducing the environmental impact of all our products," Phelps said.
Oh. Please.
Lazarus responds -- with puzzling naiveté:
That's laudable.
Um...that's bullshit, dear. Breathe in. Smell.
Novotny thinks the answer is to stop selling filtered cigarettes:
He argued that filters offer no appreciable health benefit for smokers. Although a filter may make tobacco less harsh-tasting, it does little to block carcinogens because smokers simply inhale more deeply to get the full effect of the drug."Filters are just a marketing tool to make cigarettes easier to smoke and seem better for you," Novotny said.
Take away the filter, he said, and you accomplish two things: You make the tobacco taste stronger and thus deter some people from smoking, and you eliminate one of the world's chief causes of litter.
Here's another idea. Charge smokers an extra dollar per pack as a deposit fee. If the smoker brings back 20 butts to any California cigarette retailer, he gets his dollar returned. If not, well, maybe someone else will do it.
I think the answer is to always say something to jerks who throw their butts out (unless they look armed or otherwise dangerous). In the case of the girl in the Rav4, I honked and then gave her the finger -- because I think, if you're a jerk, you should have a bad day.
it's a big world with lots of other people in it. Pull your head out of your ass-socket and give them a little thought, willya?
I don't get it. I simply don't get it. What's wrong with throwing cigarette butts on the street? What next? Fix gas containers to the exhaust pipes of cars to collect the exhaust fumes? They don't exactly smell of roses either.
Theodor Lauppert at December 1, 2008 6:24 AM
Which is really better, tossing paper/decomposable products into a lined landfill where they will remain exactly as they are for hundreds of years, or letting them decompose rather quickly outdoors? It;s like the fools who recycle their paper. It's actually worse for the environment than shredding and composting it, and planting new trees to harvest.
momof3 at December 1, 2008 6:54 AM
Theodor, are you serious? Cigarette butts are trash, just like candy wrappers and used chewing gum. I live next to a public hiking trail, and some (thankfully few) people throw their trash over the fence into our yard. I don't want their cigarette butts any more than I want their empty beer cans.
momof3 - the best place for paper and decomposable products is an incinerator. Modern incinerators are very clean, and produce decent amounts of power out of the stuff. The remaining ash is then handed off to metal recyclers, who pull all the melted metal bits out. There's not really much left afterwards, and it gets buried in landfills, which can then be a tiny fraction of the size.
bradley13 at December 1, 2008 7:43 AM
momof3, it sounds like you advocate tossing the paper residue from a trip thru McDonald's drive-up onto the highway instead of in a trash barrel. Unbelievable...
Rojak at December 1, 2008 8:22 AM
Trash is trash, and it belongs in a proper receptacle. It doesn't matter whether something is biodegradable or not, you don't just toss it on the street.
We have very nice smoker friends who would never dream of, say, leaving a wad of used Kleenex on our front patio... but when we have parties, we end up having to clean butts off of the patio, the driveway, sometimes even the flower bed! I think smokers must have different social norms or something. Littering is bad, but throwing butts out is acceptable.
Gross.
ahw at December 1, 2008 8:50 AM
Which is really better, tossing paper/decomposable products into a lined landfill where they will remain exactly as they are for hundreds of years, or letting them decompose rather quickly outdoors?
Let me know what time is good for you and I'll be over to dump my paper/decomposable products in your backyard.
Decomposables decompose in a a landfill, too. And, in a landfill, they don't add to the visual pollution and general aura of decay you find in so many cities these days.
I'm sitting in my office looking across the street at the pile of trash someone left by the side of the street. This city is full of trash in the street left by its "progressive" and inconsiderate denizens.
Contrast that with a recent visit to Chicago in which I was taken aback at seeing a woman toss her still-smoking cigarette butt into the gutter. The shocking parts were realizing that I hadn't seen anyone else casually toss trash into the gutter while walking around the Loop and realizing that her cigarette butt was the only piece of trash in that gutter (no cans, papers, wrappers, etc.). What an example of civic pride you don't see here on the West Coast. Gotta love the Windy City.
Conan the Grammarian at December 1, 2008 8:56 AM
I live in Colorado, and in the summer it can get very dry here. Every now and then some inconsiderate, idiot smoker throws a still-smoldering butt out his/her window - and starts a forest fire.
Ann at December 1, 2008 9:09 AM
I used to smoke, and I did not throw my butts on the ground. It was not difficult to drop off the cherry and place the butt into an ash tray or trash can. It took all of one to three seconds out of my life. The smoking of the cigarette probably took more than that to begin with, so it wasn't a huge sacrifice to keep from contributing to the litter of the world.
fft5305 at December 1, 2008 9:58 AM
Any smoker who tosses their butts on the ground is just plain lazy.
fft5305 at December 1, 2008 9:59 AM
In my early(low rank) days in the Army I used to joke that my fingertips were going to get cancer from all the cigarette butts I picked up during "police the area" details.
I always though we could have solved that litter problem if only smokers had to participate in those details.
There are a lot less smokers than there used to be so I see less of the "tossing the butt" behavior but I did see someone empty their ashtray out the window of their car stopped at a light a few weeks ago.
Now that person deserved a beatdown.
Sean at December 1, 2008 10:00 AM
What I don't understand is that with all the info available about how bad smoking is for you, why people still do it! I mean, okay, people like my dad, who've been smoking for 50+ years, yeah, I guess it's hard to quit, what with the nicotine addiction and all. But still. All the information is right in front of us, the schools pound it into kids' heads "Don't Smoke", and still the tobacco business is in no danger of being kaput. And if there's one thing I truly cannot stand, it's having just washed my hair, and then being in a room full of people who smoke! o.O
*pouts and flounces out of room*
Flynne at December 1, 2008 10:14 AM
I think that smokers are more likely than non-smokers to become litterers, because so much of the paraphernalia of smoking is small and tempting to just throw on the ground: butts, matches, matchcovers, plastic lighters, empty packs. I can't point to any studies to support me, just a hunch that I'm probably correct. It's the sort of study that would be easy to do, though, simply a matter of polling.
Robert at December 1, 2008 11:19 AM
Flynne, I can't remember the last time I was in a room full of smokers. I used to feel the same was as you after a night at a Strip Club. Lots of smokers in those clubs. But now it seems like it's illegal to smoke anywhere indoors in massachusetts.
Now it's just that industrial strength stripper perfume that bothers me.
Febreeze needs to come out with a "Stripper perfume" product kind of like they did with their "Pet Odor" product.
Sean at December 1, 2008 11:32 AM
Sean, it's illegal to smoke in bars here in CT but you wouldn't believe how many places just don't adhere to that - it's crazy! The local pub I used to go to regularly has a bench outside the side door for smokers, but rarely does anyone use it. They're still sitting at the bar, with plastic cups half full of water to drop their butts in. The place still stinks to high heaven of cigar and cigarette smoke. At least, it did the last time I was there - in August! o.O
Flynne at December 1, 2008 11:48 AM
Okay, I know I'm gonna get killed for this, but...
If there were more public receptacles in the US (ashtrays and trash bins), it might help with the litter. Although I never otherwise litter, I do smoke, and do throw my butts on the ground when I am walking through Paris's concrete jungle. Honestly, butts are such a part of a normal Paris walkway that I don't think twice. Maybe that is uncool, but, noone has even given me the sideeye about it. Normally, I light up once outside the métro, and find that I am just ending my cigarette when I come to my workplace, which boasts four big ashtrays outside so that is cool. But, sometimes when I go off the beaten path, I pitch my butt in the road to be washed off in the morning.
I do not however, throw butts away in nature spots such as parks, trails, or the beach, and always pack them out.
Personally, I think it depends on context, but I may have the smoker's blindness that someone referred to above. Of course, when I first joined my lab in Paris about 4 years ago, people were still smoking in their offices and semi-public spaces. Insert Gallic shrug here.
liz at December 1, 2008 12:22 PM
A few misconceptions are adrift here: cigarette butts and just about everything else "properly" thrown in landfills do not break down- see E. Royte's book "Garbage Land" to find out what actually happens to discards including many "recycables".
Butts ARE very toxic and do not breakdown in the environment and when injested by animals, birds or fish, can kill including children.
As for Lazarus' idea of applying a $1.00 per pack redemption fee, brilliant! Smokers and anyone elso can then turn in 20 butts for the $1.00. Talk about a win-win for all concerned!
While we're at it, how about a $10.00 redemption tax on packs of chewing gum?
Patrick at December 1, 2008 1:42 PM
Well part of the problem is that ashtrays are non existent. Mainly cause they encourage smoking. Most evil filthy horrid smokers (note sarcasm) would love to put it in an ashtray. Note any bar with an out door but receptacle is usually full so when given the option we prefer to put them some where. As far as parties quite honestly if you give us an ash tray we'll put it out in the ashtray. I'd like to point out that in NY gum is a hell of a lot more of a problem than smokes. Smokes wash away or can be vacuumed up gum is a bit harder.
I'd be all for the 1.00 redemption fee, hell even 2 dollars.
As to the why question, well just like any thing else that's dangerous or unhealthy it feels good. I'm fine with not smoking at work, public places etc. but the health nazis have banned smoking at cigar bars and smoke shops. If you hate smoke why the hell are you in a cigar shop or bar?
vlad at December 1, 2008 2:28 PM
I am ashamed I do throw my cigar butts on the ground. Thinking about it - it is just plain lazy behavior. As to the woman Amy saw - she had a choice she is in a car and most cars come with ashtrays which is where butts belongs - so later it can be thrown into a garbage can.
All it takes is changing your behavior and dealing with a minute or two of minor inconvenience. Same with any garbage. Most modern societies have been blessed with some sort of garbage disposal system. The questions is why throw it into nature or where you live and work when you have a solution.
The more I think about it - the next time I see some idiot throw a butt into the street. I am going to whip out my Johnson and proceed to piss on their feet. As they scream at me and yell at me for my behavior. Asking why the hell I am not using a toilet - Calmly with a serious expression say hey it is biodegradable. And if they could not wait one minute to out the butt into a can why do I need to wait and walk to find a toilet.
John Paulson at December 1, 2008 2:48 PM
I have been guilty of this, and I do feel ashamed and will try to watch myself. But if Amy would have given me the finger for throwing a cigarette butt from the car, I'm not sure I would have even realized what she was upset about (when you have a bad habit, you don't always think about what you are doing). I would have just assumed that Amy was some anti-smoking fanatic who didn't like the fact l was smoking in the first place. And I'm glad that others have brought up the lack of ashtrays anywhere. If anyone recommends putting in more public ashtrays to help with the litter problem, I'm sure there would be tons of opposition - as if more ashtrays are going to cause people to smoke more.
Karen at December 1, 2008 3:04 PM
As an avid runner/walker/cyclist, I see a lot of trash on the ground. Almost all of it is litter from junk food, soda or beer cans and bottles, and cigarettes (either butts or empty packs). My theory is, these people clearly don't give a shit about what they put in their bodies, so why would they give a shit about the environment?
Clare at December 1, 2008 6:34 PM
liz, I would enjoy having a smoke with you some time! You are honest.
Pirate Jo at December 1, 2008 7:41 PM
Interesting factoid. Texas did a huge litter study a while back. They found out that 1) most litterers are young adult males (hence the manly "Don't mess with Texas" campaign) and 2) most fires are started by sun though glass bottles, not lit cigarettes.
momof3 at December 2, 2008 5:23 PM
I used to regularly accost people who threw their butts on the ground and admonish them to pick them up. Perhaps because I'm a scowling endomorph, they usually complied. Once I saw a woman do it and said "Oh no you dit-int". She rewarded me with a stream of invective about minding my own business. I reminded her that when she uses our planet as an ashtray / garbage pail, it's then my business. Apparently she didn't agree, as I just heard more invective.
Sorry, Amy, but anger management therapy has robbed me of the urge to continue.
DaveG at December 2, 2008 7:55 PM
Hey Flynne,
Where do you live in CT? I used to rock Rocky Hill, New Britain, Plainville and Southington in that order. Do you remember Oscar's in Rocky Hill? Funniest Meet Market I ever saw - horny divorced 40somethings dancing to the stylings of the guy on the suitcase-size electric piano.
DaveG at December 2, 2008 8:01 PM
Flynne, again,
Hungry Tiger in Manchester? God, I'm flashing back to my 20s!
DaveG at December 2, 2008 8:02 PM
I smoke every now and again, preferably a good cigar (Partagas), but I make a habit of tossing the remnants of it into one of the many public trash cans.
A fair number do not...but of all the things an asshole can do in his day...and in 16-18 hours there are so many...well tossing the remnant of a cigarette is the smallest of the small.
Really, is a cigarette butt worth getting upset over? What, the paper won't degrade?
Worry more about tossed bottles...those could actually hurt someone.
Worry more about thrown away cans...they may be fewer in volume (perhaps not?) but they'll be with us a great deal longer than a largely paper based product that is readily degradable within the environment.
Sure its not pretty, personally I find it a bit annoying, and much as I just delight in the wit and wisdom of our lady of advice...sometimes she's to Californian even for me.
Robert at December 3, 2008 9:30 AM
Once I was stopped at a red light and the driver in front of me threw his cigarette butt out the window. I got out of my car, picked up the butt, placed it on the windshield under the wiper, and told the driver, "You forgot something."
I think the trash tossing driver was in shock!
Brett at December 4, 2008 7:00 PM
Looking at cigeratte butts lying on the ground, drain
and grass patch really upset me even though I am a smoker myself.
I am not those environmental crazy people who care too much
about what the cig. Butt contain, I just feel that the cig. Manufacturer
Should make the filter easily discomposable like it disolve
After 24-72 hours when it touch water.
I have tested myself putting a cig. Butt in a bottle filled
With various liquid like sodium hydroxide, water, detergent, etc..
Acid work the best, butt in sodium hydroxide will disolve
After 5-6 days (I think that will happen if the bottle is sealed)
Else the sodium hydroxide will be less effective.
Anyway, since so much taxes, money is make, the manufacturer
Should resolve this issue.
mercedesingapore at March 19, 2009 7:21 PM
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