The Cigarette Butt Ecological Nightmare Problem - What it is, and what to do and not to do about it.

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

You ARE attacking smokers.

He isn't. I'm a smoker and I don't feel attacked by what he said.

I actually agree with him. It's not that rare to see places around a city where the wind forces dust and light trash into a spot, and you see hundreds and hundreds of cigarette butts.

The problem exists, and disposing of those butts safely is not a bad thing.

The estimates for cigarette butts to break down are from 3 months to 10-15 years with the "consensus" being 10 to 15 years.

And you think that's reasonable?

Considering there are people who smoke heavily and can go through 2 or 3 packs a day, and some of those butts could end up being thrown to the street, I think that a 10 to 15 year degradation span is huge.

Show me just one example of a fish kill caused by a cigarette butt. the filter may break down first by photo-degradation and then bio-degradation but the "chemicals" are all organic. When a house burns down - is the soil "toxic". Does rain water flow through the site, enter waterways and kill fish?

Yes, it is toxic. Yes, it does kill fish.

I think you have a misunderstanding of how fragile nature can be, and how toxic some of our modern materials are. Especially plastic based products.

I suggest you do something: smoke a cigarette and then throw it inside a water bottle, half-empty or with just a little bit of water. Then let it sit there for a day or two, or maybe just a couple of hours.

When it turns sh#-color brown, smell it. If you can drink it without vomiting, then I will agree with you, it's not hazardous. But I have the feeling you will change your opinion about it "not killing fishes" once you see what a single finished cigarette or used cig butt does to a portion of water.

You are painting this like each cigarette only has the natural aspects of the tobacco leaf in it and if forests burn down and don't contaminate, a cigarette can't do it either. Which is complete BS. Any commercial cigarette is filled with hazard toxins, to us and especially to any living thing that isn't adapted to smoking.

In the whole history of the world, what other item of litter is "counted" individually to make it the number 1 ecological disaster.

The six-pack can plastic that holds them together.

It's the whole reason why most beer producers now case their beers in paper or cardboard.

Anti-smokers campaign to take ashtrays away from smokers (even in private cars) knowing that people would be forced to toss the butt. Then they use that circumstance to attack smokers even more.

I don't understand why anyone would take the ashtray out of a place where you can smoke. I don't think I've seen that happen.

As for ashtrays in cars, rental companies do it so that non-smokers don't have to stand the smell while driving. In private cars you can have the ashtray, you just need to ask for a smokers version of the car.

And actually, a lot of non-smokers now ask for smoker-cars, because usually in that package the dashboard cigarette lighter comes included, and that comes in handy to charge your cellphone and other stuff.

Why are smoker required to pay special littering fines when other people toss things like plastic coke bottles that end up as small shards that kill birds and fish?????

Because becoming a smoker is basically a trap, an addiction trap. Once you start is very difficult to stop, and the only way governments have found to effectively decrease smoking, is to hit people in their wallets.

You also pay increased taxes because the amount of money everyone has to spend on health-care just because of smoking-related diseases is gigantic.

Want to end the problem? Provide smokers with indoor locations were they can sit down with individual ashtrays!

The smoke is too much to handle. You need to have proper air conditioners, which cost money and wouldn't be necessary to run if people weren't smoking inside.

Then there's the cleaning expenses. The amount of filter changes, and other types of cleaning that you need to do when people smoke indoors, is actually very high.

anti-smokers created the problem and the governement can use the billions of dollars that smokers pay in taxes to solve the problem.

Again, I'm a smoker but I'm very shocked to read some of the things you say.

Anti-smokers created the problem? How? By not smoking? The problem exists because people smoke and refuse to stop smoking, besides not having a single reasonable and plausible reason to do so.

Hey, we are all free - in principle - so we should do whatever we want to out bodies.

But nobody should be forced out of a building because you want to smoke indoors. If I was the type of guy that likes to take huge dumps in the middle of rooms, would you accept it?

No. You would ask me, or even push me, into going to the bathroom. That's the correct place to do those things, in the toilet. Correct?

So why must other people accept you do something that hurts their health and is equally disgusting to those who don't smoke? They don't have to take up with the smell of smoke, nor do they have to breath it in, nor do they have to clean your crap when you leave.

I will continue to toss my butt at will until I am treated with dignity.

What you are saying is that you will continue to behave like a inconsiderate jackass because people don't give you ashtrays.

What are you? A king?

I'm a smoker, and I carry anywhere I go this little cute steel box that doesn't let any smell or ash out, so I can put my butts in there.

I actually got the idea from a videogame character that smoked but couldn't let his DNA be captured, so he had to save all his cigarette butts. Different purpose, same means...

It's amazing how disrespectful you are towards other people, yet you claim you are the one without any rights.

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
Are you saying that there would never be a wild fire if smokers didn't exist?

Is that what I said? No, it isn't. Perhaps you should read again. I don't want smokers to "not exist". I actually still love the smell, and more importantly, I believe in freedom - with responsibility, of course. I want them to take responsibility for throwing burning material wherever they want.

Next time I am going to throw a cigarette butt in the fire pit and I should have a blazing bon fire in 30 seconds flat!

You don't live in the southwest, do you?

If you don't want wild fires to be started by cigarette butts - how about putting ashtrays back in cars.

They don't come with toilets, either, but do hang your butt out the window and poop on the side of the road? Take some responsibility for your actions and stop blaming other people.

NO - just provide me with an ashtray

They are readily available in MANY stores nationwide. I used to carry a small can with kitty litter in it IN MY CAR to put butts in no matter where I was.

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

I am NOT being "denied" services. Seriously, you talk like a pre-teen. I have the same services a non-smoker has, actually. I can dispose of a field stripped cigarette butt in the same trash can that the non-smokers use...

I can choose to ask for a car with an ash tray when I purchase a car.

I can eat wherever I like... and I DON'T have to lend my patronage to businesses such as restaurants who don't want me smoking in them after my meal, besides... I haven't found a restaurant yet that cooks better than me anyway, and if I want fast a hot pocket or a quick salad will do - at a much reduced rate.

I DO vote with my dollars...and I DON'T feel the need to throw tantrums when the world doesn't cater to me by committing acts that are wrong for anyone to do. The world doesn't revolve around me, nor do I think it should.

THAT is the difference between us.

A response to you point by point:

Yes - cigarette butt litter exists. That is what happens when you force smokers to smoke without a nearby ashtray. The same thing would happen with litter in general if you removed all municipally operated trash cans. So providing ashtrays is merely providing for safe disposal.

No - I don't think that providing an estimate for the break down of cigarette butts that ranges from 3 months to 20 years is reasonable. And than - deciding the issue by consensus is even more unreasonable. Its not science. Its propaganda. Like saying that butts don't biodegrade. That is a false statement. Its just that photo-degradation takes place first, followed by biodegradation and 3 months is the most reasonable estimate of how long it takes a butt to completely degrade.

I just bought a car two years ago and couldn't get an ashtray put in for love or money.

I am forcing no one out of anywhere. I am laughing at the idiots who think smoking infests each and every building. Is smoke intelligent? Can it turn corners? Can it decide to penetrate concrete walls and rock board? Can a lighter than air gas decide to sink to floor level, infiltrate electrical plugs and follow the twists and turns of the electrical wires to a plug in another apartment? Why do we never hear the same asmathics complain of candle smoke? or cooking smoke? Or auto exhaust right outside their windows? or marijuana smoke?

man existed for millenia by burning organic material to heat their homes and cook their food. If smoke affected asthmatics that severely than the gene for asthma would have caused them to die out totally. Instead, if you know anything about asthma, the incidence has increased by 800 % since the 1960s. That is the time period when we quit heating our homes with dirty organics. coincidentally, that is also when anti-smoking got started up again and the incidence of smoking when down in the population.

I am a smoker. I chose to smoke. It is not your place, or anyone else's to decide that I must quit smoking because in THEIR judgement there is no good cause to do so. I can also claim that there is no good reason to drink soda - but people do, or ride motorcycles, but people do, or climb mountains but people do or job in the mid-day sun during a smog alert, right beside busy traffic, but people do.

Or light candles when electic light is available but people do or light fireplaces and wood stoves when gas heat is available but people do. Or cook their food on a BBQ,when they have perfectly good electric stoves, but people do.

You have talked of my dis-respect but you have immediately denied me the simple human dignity of pursuing happiness in my own way. I am simply giving back the disrespect that has been dealt to smokers.

Did you see the litter on Scotlands beaches - how many cigarette butts did you find? Why do smokers get fined at a rate of 93% to 7 % of non-smokers?

What is the matter - don't like it when smokers finally talk back - instead of hanging their head and shame and promising to "quit soon" as is the politically correct thing to do?

I notice that not one single smoker on this site has said that they also litter butts. Apparantly, every single smoker is a "good" smoker and careful of their butts, except me! I don't think I smoke that much. I think people are toeing the party line and speaking the politically correct words to get people off their backs.

Me- I am not so politically correct. I will give the respect that I get! Obviously, if I am getting stars, I am merely stating what others are too afraid to say.

Tired of Control Freaks

People just cant mind their own business can they........
The whole anti smoking trip is just so much social engineering.....
Those who seem to think they have a natural born right to dictate to others how they must live....what they can and cannot do....are creations of the current education system and social programming....
They cannot even think for themselves.....
Anti smokers are as bad as anti abortion groups....frenzied grasping at any reason to bitch about their pet peeve....
Little do they realize its a created mind set, and hardly the result of their own mentation.....

a reply to: OpinionatedB

Oh really - where I live - there is not a single restaurant or bar who can provide services to me and my friends while we smoke. There is precious few hotel rooms I can rent where I can smoke in the room I have rented.

I am being denied shelter from the elements while I smoke. Smoking shelters if provided at all, cannot have more than 2 walls and a roof. I am provided less shelter than a dog in minus 50 degree weather.

Tired of Control freaks

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

Can you drive and poop at the same time? That is quite a skill!

Why do anti-smokers instead on infant comparisons of smoke to excrement and urine? Quite chidish.

Tired of control Freaks

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

the whole "while you smoke" is rather key to your sentence.

Your not being denied shelter, or services, or hotel rooms.

If you want a shelter you can smoke in, try your car if its raining. If you want to smoke and eat at the same time, try a park with a packed lunch instead of a restaurant when your out.

In one of the towns where I used to live, the anti-smoking in bars came on the table... and it got passed. Bars and restaurants had lost SO MUCH business that they fought tooth and nail to get the laws repealed... which they did end up getting all of them repealed.

Vote with your dollars, and you will see changes - if enough people vote with their dollars with you. If they aren't with you, then so what? Don't ask the entire world to cater to you.

a reply to: OpinionatedB

Absolutely - that is what it comes down to. I have not gone to a bar or restaurant since 2006 when the bylaw came in. But its not a matter of "adjusting" as you have done.

In Canada, a group of people started a sex club for swingers. The police shut them down. The case went to the Supreme Court, it was ruled that the Canadian constitution provided the right of people to peaceful assembly. Those people were on private property and were hurting no one.

Shortly after, a man started a private club. The building was alone on a semi-rural lot There were no employees. Members of the club provided services to others on a volunteer basis. And yet the health unit shut it down.

I am being denied the right to peaceful assembly on private property with my friends.

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

Answer my question:

"how do they know that a cigarette butt started a wild fire and that it wasn't the sun's rays being concentrated through a discarded glass bottle or lightning or a careless camp fire or some other cause?

Tired of Control Freaks

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
Quite chidish.

Dude, read your posts. You are talking like an entitled and spoiled child, expecting the world to cater to your whims or else you're going to throw a fit (or a butt) anywhere you want.

They make Car Ashtrays by the way. But heaven forbid you should have to buy something to support your habit. Do you buy your own cigarettes or does someone provide them to you? Do you buy trash cans for your house, or do you just throw stuff on the floor when your finished with it, expecting the home builder to include them?

Do whatever you want, throw your butts to the wind, but if you're miserable (as you seem to be) it's no one's fault but your own for not taking responsibility for your own actions and expecting the world to cater to your habit.

a reply to: OpinionatedB

I think you should also know that in Canada - all liquor and beer is sold by the government. When the bars and restaurants lost business due to anti-smoking, the government did not care because the profit from the selling of liquor and beer went up by 3.5 billion the same year.

Bars and restaurants went out of business but there was no loss of taxes to the government.

Also - I think you should know that we have had senior citizens freeze to death as they just "stepped outside" of nursing homes

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

I am talking like a harassed and beleagured smoker who is ready to fight back! It is childish to expect the whole world and every single place in that world to cater only to your tastes.

I bought a car two years ago - and could not get an ashtray!

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

I'm in the United States... the government doesn't dictate to us what we do in our own homes/private property here.

a reply to: OpinionatedB

What a lie!

coming soon to a city near you

www.nytimes.com...

tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.ca...

Tired of Control Freaks

Oh another tread that started with truth and swayed towards offenced smokers that make up excuses for their WEAKNESS and DEPENDANCE on a product that offers NO ADVANTAGES to the user and ESPECIALLY to the environement around them.

Wanting a cleaner planet, healthier citizens and less litter is such an evil leftist, socialistic and communist nefarious plan to control people for macavelic reasons that only target good innocent smokers.

It's your choice to embrace your controlling addiction but stop acting like it's not a negative thing to do.

Instead of being tired of control freaks, people should be tired of being controlled by their addictions.
Period.

a reply to: theMediator

Poor poor puritans - we must really pity them. They are always just one more regulation away from Utopia.

Excuse me - but what some people consider "good" intentions almost always as undisireable consequences.

Case in point - why not ban marijuane? We can make up lies about reefer madness and we will have a healthier population.

Result: Millions of people jailed for minor offenses and now have "ruined" lives. Organized crime on the rise, corruptible police force and judiciary. People dying in drug deals gone bad. Neighbourhoods and cities taken over by gangs.

Get over yourself and your "good" intentions. They never, ever work out the way you want them to!

Tired of Control Freaks

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
Answer my question:

I'm not going to answer your question just because you demand I do, like some insolent child. The science of fires and how they start is not my specialty. I'm not a forensic fire investigator. But I can read. I'm sure you can read about it if you wish to know, but I will not provide an answer just because you demand it like you demand an ashtray in your car. Look it up!

It is childish to expect the whole world and every single place in that world to cater only to your tastes.

Good to see you see agree with me.

I actually don't expect that at all. If I don't like the environment, I don't go there. And as I said, I love the smell of cigarette smoke.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

And you can't answer my question, but not because you are not a fire inspector. You can't answer my question because the truth is, cigarette butts are just NOT the cause of wild fires that they have been portrayed to be:

www.abc.net.au...

While discarded cigarette butts are often blamed for causing fires, Woods says research by the CSIRO in the 1960s, and more recently in Australia and the United States, suggests cigarettes only start fires under limited circumstances. "Whilst they cannot be totally discounted, it's not as common as many would think."

"Cigarette butts usually survive fires, and based on the research, the ability for the remnant burning section of the cigarette to come in contact with fuel, means it has to be physically land at a certain angle," says Woods. "Equally the weather parameters are very specific, for instance on a day when it's 20°C and 75 per cent humidity, means it's very unlikely that a discarded cigarette will cause a grass fire. The research doesn't support it."

So for the last half century, smokers have been very unfairly blamed for an awful lot of things that they are innocent of.

Even house fires - its not normal for a smoker to start a house fire with a cigarette. But it is normal for a drunk to improperly dispose of their butts and take normal care. Of course the same thing happens when they try to cook!

Tired For Control Freaks

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

I never talked about banning cigarettes?

I think you need to relax a bit because you aren't making any sense...

I just saying you, and other smokers, need to stop acting like cigarette aren't a problem when everything clearly shows it is a problem. Just go on smoking if it feels good for you, I ain't stopping you but stop being blinded by your addiction and just accept the facts. Your over reaction clealy shows your ego is keeping you in denial.

Let it go.