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

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks
I can talk about bush-fires, I'm perfectly qualified to talk about those. I've seen people lose houses because of fires caused by discarded cigarettes, it happens. It might not be as uch a risk in your sheltered little world but it is a frequent occurrence in fire season here where I live. People have died, Im not being melodramatic. Seen it first-hand.

Take some responsibility for your own actions and bin your butts.

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks

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.

I don't get it, if the drunk diposes of butts, then he's a smoker too?

The alcohol didn't start the fire as far as I know...

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

Yes, when it's 75% humidity, as it often is in Australia, it's unlikely that cigarette butts start fires, but HERE in the desert southwest, it's RARELY 75% humidity as we are in a perpetual drought.

I never claimed wildfires started over the world were cause by butts, I said, "MANY of the fires here are started by people simply and mindlessly flicking burning butts out the windows." Here meaning the desert southwest. And wildfires are just ONE problem with butts that I wanted to add to the OP.

Find someone else to argue with.

a reply to: theMediator

Mediator

Stop and re-read my posts. I have NOT denied in any way, shape or form that butt litter is a problem (a small problem buried under a mountain of other litter).

I have said, and quite clearly I might add, that littering butts is a form of protest in a world where every comfort and convenience have been denied to smokers (including shelter from minus 50 degree cold, blazing heat and storms etc).

I am protesting how I am being treated and quite obviously so are millions of other smokers.

You want me to dispose of my trash properly. Then give me the same services you give to other citizens. I want an ashtry, a place to site, shelter from the elements and a place for me to socialize with my friends.

I also want to be able to buy a car that has an ashtray!

Tired of Control Freaks

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
I want an ashtry, a place to site, shelter from the elements and a place for me to socialize with my friends.

I also want to be able to buy a car that has an ashtray!

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
You want me to dispose of my trash properly. Then give me the same services you give to other citizens. I want an ashtry, a place to site, shelter from the elements and a place for me to socialize with my friends.

I also want to be able to buy a car that has an ashtray!

Tired of Control Freaks

On that, I couldn't agree more!

Removing ashtrays from cars was a really stupid idea. I also have nothing against smoking rooms either if properly ventilated. I wouldn't want to step on the freedom of smokers but our freedom stops where another's starts so I feel it's a thin line to walk on for smokers.

Individually, I feel bad for smokers loosing ground but socially, I couldn't be happier...sorry to feel this way.

@tiredofcontrolfreaks

Awww man, that form of protest is missing the target. You are hurting mother earth, who is not trying to control you. She loves you.

The control freaks can care less, they want you to litter. Society could care less because we're all too damn lazy, brainwashed, and distracted...

a reply to: theMediator

Ah - so in the end, it really comes down to, my wants are all pretty reasonable.

BTW - could care less how you feel about me. You don't pay my mortgage and you don't have to try to keep my fingers warm while I try to smoke in minus 50 degree weather.

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: GoShredAK

Gosh - didn't think of it that way. Well I guess if the anti-smokers really care about "mother earth", then I should be getting my needs met any day now!

Tired of control Freaks

a reply to: RifRAAF

I have put up a post where the fire service admits that it in highly unlikely that a cigarette butt started a bush fire.

But you go on with your bad self and explain to me exactly how you knew it was a cigarette butt that started one particular fire.

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

In the United States you CAN purchase a car with an ashtray... In the United States, you can still smoke in PRIVATE member only restaurants and clubs - just not public ones. In the United States, if you do trip planning before a trip you can find hotel rooms that allow smoking, and book them in advance of any trip.

In the United States, no one has outlawed smoking in private homes, and partiers everywhere have taken the party out of bars and into the homes of friends.

What is ignorance, is to expect the entire public sector to provide your desires.

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
a reply to: GoShredAK

Gosh - didn't think of it that way. Well I guess if the anti-smokers really care about "mother earth", then I should be getting my needs met any day now!

Tired of control Freaks

Very good point, I think that boils down to the whole lazy, distracted and brainwashed thing.

Anti-smokers just want to have something to complain about and focus their energy on other people instead of looking inward and worrying about themselves.

Why be so anti anything when it comes to others social choices? What a waste of energy.

I'm totally with you there, I can't stand people who are so judgmental.

Get with the times

Combustion is so last century.

Vape it you damn hippies!

originally posted by: GoShredAK
Anti-smokers just want to have something to complain about

I'm not AT ALL anti-smoker. I don't care what people do with their lives, but when it affects ME, then I have something to say.

a reply to: OpinionatedB

And again - you are mistaken.

A bar is not PUBLIC property. It is private property. Are the taxpayers paying the mortgage, the business taxes or the wages of employees.

a private person owns those bars and restaurants, not the government and not the public.

So, in the United States, you can most certainly usurp private property!

The only reason you can still smoke in private clubs is because that is where the wealthier people go and they are sure not going to put up with "taking it outside" when they socialize. One law for them and another for everyone else

That is for the lower classes.

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

ah - but sometimes you CAN get what you want!

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

Yes - cigarette butt litter exists. That is what happens when you force smokers to smoke without a nearby ashtray.

No, that's what happens when people are poorly educated.

They care only about themselves and very little about others.

"I want to smoke mommy, but they won't let me, so I'm going to throw the butt to the floor. Someone will have to clean it, but not me, I'm entitled to throw crap to the floor".

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.

It has been proven that if an open area is maintained clean, people will avoid throwing trash to the ground. Even if there aren't any garbage cans nearby.

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.

You know, just because something decays into very tiny particles, to the point where you can't see them in the naked eye, doesn't mean it isn't there. Or in this case, isn't polluting.

Cigarette butts are fragile and decay into very tiny fibers. But they are still there. It's those fibers that take up ages to disappear.

By then they could be inside a fish, or contaminating a plant feeding of the soil where it is.

You sound like a 1950's person who has no understanding of modern science.

I am forcing no one out of anywhere. I am laughing at the idiots who think smoking infests each and every building.

If someone doesn't want to breath in your smoke, but you insist in smoking, yes. You are forcing them out of the building. They won't have any choice unless they want to get second-hand smoke.

Is smoke intelligent?

More than some people, apparently.

Can it turn corners?

Yes.

Can it decide to penetrate concrete walls and rock board?

Well, smoke doesn't "decide". But no. However, it can penetrate the joints between those walls, and below doors, or around windows.

It has something to do with air pressure. But I now believe it's pointless to explain why.

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?

Smoke isn't lighter than air, although it is light.

Where it goes depends on it's density. If a room is filled with smoke, and pressure forces that smoke out of that room - with all doors and windows closed - it will infiltrate any hole, crack or space that is open.

If you haven't seen this happen, it just means you are ignorant to the problem. It happens.

Old commercial airplanes even have brown stripes in some places, because back then people could smoke during flight and the smoke would be pushed out from the plane due to differences in pressure, no matter how small the hole was.

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.

Are you comparing having a fireplace with sucking smoke directly into your lungs?

"for millenia" people figured out they needed a chimney if they didn't want to die because of the smoke.

It's very insulting to yourself to say things like that. It shows that cavemen figured something out in their time, that you still haven't: smoke is bad.

Instead, if you know anything about asthma, the incidence has increased by 800 % since the 1960s.

That's bullsh#.
Also, do you know what causes asthma in babies, which can turn chronic and affect them their whole life? Pregnancy smoking.

coincidentally, that is also when anti-smoking got started up again and the incidence of smoking when down in the population.

Are you saying that because people stopped smoking as often, they got sicker...?

I'm almost tempted to stop replying to you.

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.

No dude, people don't want you smoking near them because it hurts their health.

You're just mad because people don't let you do exactly what you want to do, when you want to do it.

You have talked of my dis-respect but you have immediately denied me the simple human dignity of pursuing happiness in my own way.

Your happiness is jeopardizing other people's health, and you have absolutely no right to do that.

Also, other people have the right to be happy without having to breath in your smoke filled air. Period.

I am simply giving back the disrespect that has been dealt to smokers.

No, you are being an jackass. I'm a smoker and I don't feel disrespected if a child, or a lady, or a gentlemen is next to me and is bothered by my smoke.

They have the right to breath clean air.

That's respect.

Why do smokers get fined at a rate of 93% to 7 % of non-smokers?

Because smoking, like playing the lottery, is called the "tax of the stupid". People pay it willingly, no matter how high.

Should put your addiction into perspective. Instead you just get mad at everyone.

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 think you have an addiction problem if you are getting all emotional about a smoking discussion...

I notice that not one single smoker on this site has said that they also litter butts.

Can't speak for others. I don't, I carry a portable ashtray.

Apparantly, every single smoker is a "good" smoker and careful of their butts, except me!

You are the one saying "I throw butts to the floor on purpose because I can't see an ashtray around me".

Since when is having an ashtray near you at all times a fundamental living commodity?

I think people are toeing the party line and speaking the politically correct words to get people off their backs.

No, people are merely aware that not everyone wishes to smoke, and that those people have the right to live without breathing second-hand smoke.

So they respect them.

Smoking isn't vital, so why can't you just wait until you can go outside for a smoke break?

Obviously, if I am getting stars, I am merely stating what others are too afraid to say.

No, it just means you have people in here who are just as much disrespectful as you are.

a reply to: VashKonnor

Wow - you ain't even worth talking to!

Tired of Control Freaks

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
a reply to: VashKonnor

Wow - you ain't even worth talking to!

Of course not, you would get your azz whopped.

a reply to: VashKonnor

oh and BTW - I pay horrendous taxes every year to have those cleaned up! I would have a lot more respect if you voted not to accept tax dollars from tobacco or smokers on the grounds that it is, afterall, blood money!

Tired of Control Freaks