Cigarette Butts

[REDVAN]

I have a rental property beside me, which is being used to transition "lost souls" back into society properly. They all smoke.

So, consequently, there are about 5 billion cigarette butts now on my walkways, and on my lawn, and in front of my street (where they also just dump out their garbage from their vehicles).

What an annoyance. There must be something I can do other than confronting them about it- take a passive aggressive approach and put a sign on my lawn that says "no littering or throwing cigarette butts"??

[blankall]

Originally Posted by REDVAN

I have a rental property beside me, which is being used to transition "lost souls" back into society properly. They all smoke.

So, consequently, there are about 5 billion cigarette butts now on my walkways, and on my lawn, and in front of my street (where they also just dump out their garbage from their vehicles).

What an annoyance. There must be something I can do other than confronting them about it- take a passive aggressive approach and put a sign on my lawn that says "no littering or throwing cigarette butts"??

I would talk to the owner of the property. Get them to put in an ashtray and speak to the tenants about it.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by REDVAN

I have a rental property beside me, which is being used to transition "lost souls" back into society properly. They all smoke.

So, consequently, there are about 5 billion cigarette butts now on my walkways, and on my lawn, and in front of my street (where they also just dump out their garbage from their vehicles).

What an annoyance. There must be something I can do other than confronting them about it- take a passive aggressive approach and put a sign on my lawn that says "no littering or throwing cigarette butts"??

Go after the landlord...

[Huntingwhale]

The great thing about smoking weed is that you can save the roaches, then smoke them later!

[Tron_fdc]

For all the smokers out there worried about butts smelling up their car or having no place to toss butts after a dart outside:

Get a nicorette container. No idea why, but you can jam butts into it and it NEVER smells bad. You can carry it in your pocket, and never worry about it stinking up your clothes. I have no idea why, but it works.



http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=nicore...:0&tx=47&ty=48

[Yasa]

Cram all the butts into your nose, then you won't have to smell anything.

[EVERLAST]

just last week on the deerfoot dude in front of me tosses his cig out the window and it ended up in the cab of my work truck .....I couldnt find the damn thing until it had burnt the new seat covers my boss installed on the bench seat. Jeeeeeezus I was pished.

I wanted to catch up and throw my new full timmys in the passenger open window of his car which I coulda and woulda done but my truck travels at the speed of smell and I couldnt catch him.

yeah, this is a real gear grinder of mine....pigs

[Ashartus]

Originally Posted by blankall

The majority of carcinogens in cigarettes are also naturally occuring coumpounds produced by the incomplete combustion of plant materials. This includes benzene etc... The amount of these compounds released into the environment by cigarette smokers is miniscule when compared with the amount released by automobiles and other fossil fuel combustion (I mean really miniscule). Some additional, carcinogens may be present in cigarettes as a result of pesticides used during the tobaccco growth, but once again we are talking about miniscule amounts.

Essentially the major carcniongens in cigarettes are carbon structures that are common in any form of ash, smoke, or charcoal. There's nothing magic about cigarettes. You're burning part of a tobacco leaf.

That being said, I do agree the butts are unsightly. I do occasionally socially smoke and try to dispose of my butts when at all possible.

While some (but not all) of the carcinogens in cigarette smoke may be released in larger quantities overall by cars and fossil fuel burning, it's not the quantity released into the environment that is important but the concentration people are exposed to and the amount of time they spend exposed. Burning a few cigarettes in indoor air or in a car results in way higher exposure than the other sources. Even smoking outside can if the people breathing the smoke are directly downwind for an extended time (e.g. outdoor patio). Also the carcinogens released by burning plant material depend a lot on temperature; the lower temperature combustion occurring in cigarettes results in a much higher amount of the worst carcinogens (such as benzo[a]pyrene) being produced per mass of material burned than most other types of plant combustion (e.g. large fires).

Most of the worst carcinogens in cigarette smoke aren't really released in huge quantities from automobiles since gasoline is primarily relatively low molecular weight hydrocarbons (though emissions from diesel engines can be a bit worse). Benzene is emitted by cars of course, but benzene isn't as bad as a lot of the higher molecular weight PAH etc. in cigarette smoke and has a pretty short atmospheric half-life.

[Cowperson]

Cigarette ashes,
Cigarette butts,
We got Edmonton by the nuts,
Rim, Ram,
Goddam
Sonavabitch,
Shat


My sole contribution. Heard at a Camrose college hockey game once.

Cowperson

[evman150]

Wow. Was reading this thread before my break at work. Went for pizza, came back and smelt smoke. The new mulch out front of the office was on fire. 911 call later and three firemen come to put it out.

They said to me: "Most likely some idiot with a cigarette butt".

Doesn't take much people.

[Yasa]

Originally Posted by evman150

Doesn't take much people.

Yeah, they really could have done with just 1 firefighter.

[Flacker]

As a smoker I can definitely say that most these butt-chuckers are oblivious. I really don't like smoking in public in general as really it has to be one of the more foolish ways to spend your time and money. There really is no excuse for tossing a cigarette without a thought. I have palmed a butt in the past and waited for a garbage can/ashtray, it's just something that I was aware of I guess. As for throwing smokes out of vehicles, that's just stupid. Cruising top down in the convertible and a burning ember lands on your package, it'll be pretty hard to keep it under control I'd imagine. Take into account you could burn up someone's home, business, life and fines really should be enforced.

People are creatures of habit and they have littered without consequence for so long that they don't even think about it. Calgary went guns a blazing with the bylaw but there is zero enforcement, and it seems even less public awareness.

I don't feel oppressed as a smoker, the stigma that comes with smoking is well earned by oblivious smokers. If there was more considerate smokers there would be no need for so many rules and restrictions.

If they blitz on enforcement it would be a tidal wave of cash for the city until awareness was raised. The fines are extremely steep, justifiably so.

[MoneyGuy]

Situation: It's about three years ago at a shopping centre parking lot. Jerk in this car tosses out a Tim Hortons cup filled with butts. I'm walking by and pick up the cup and hand it back to the guy through his window, telling him that he must have dropped it.

He opens his door and he's much bigger than I am. He says to take back the cup or he's going to pummel me. I tell him to take his best shot, because I'm one of the best criminal lawyers in the city and it'd better be a great shot because it'll cost him $50,000 minimum. Of course, I'm not a lawyer.

He calls me an a**hole and gets into his car and drives off. True story.

[macker]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

So is 24.7% an increasing rate over previous years? Is it continually increasing? This number doesn't suggest anything about cigarette butt litter becoming worse, per se. Also, where were these coastal cleanups? And I should mention that just because it was the highest rate in the study you quoted, doesn't mean it was the most damaging to the surrounding environment.

I'm not sure there's much of a case to be made that the 'future' is going to suffer considerably if there is no data as to significant cigarette butt littering rates and the damage they cause to the environment. If there is, I'll eat some humble pie. But in my consideration, there is far worse pollution out there. Let's start with car exhaust for one. Smokers and non-smokers are both guilty of this; I think people need to ween themselves off of car usage almost as bad as people who need to ween off cigarettes. It's really a matter of perspective.

Prior to 1954 most cigarettes weren't filtered so that alone has enhanced the problem. The somewhat recent ban of indoor smoking caused a shift in cigarette disposition. Now more butts are accumulating outside and on streets etc. Also global tobacco consumption has doubled in the last 30 years (USDA). cigarette butts take up a large volume of space. If one person smokes a pack and a half a day, he will consume more than 10,000 cigarettes in a year. This number of cigarette butts (filters only --not including remnant tobacco) will fill a volume of liters. Worldwide annual consumption of cigarettes creates enough cigarette butt waste to fill more than 2,800,000,000 liters. The reason I brought up the International Coastal clean ups is because this is one measure to show how many of these butts are ending up in streams, rivers and coastal environments. In these clean ups Cigarettes have topped the list every year since it started in 1998 and the volume has been increasing since these records have been tracked (USDA). There is also a Canadian cleanup organized in Vancouver http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_C...reline_Cleanup People are starting to push back on this issue. I was in Santa Cruz in July and there was full on anti-pollution marches on the streets and save our beaches etc. and many of the mascots etc. dressed up with signs had cigarette butts pictured as noted by the stats it is the biggest pollutant in the oceans and beaches today. Too bad as they have some beautiful state beaches in the area that are completely polluted. Some of this has to do with letting the dune buggies run wild in that particular area but people just don't seem to care when they mindlessly toss stuff out. I was at these same beaches two years prior and yes the problem is getting worse. Nevermind that though and your need to have these things backed up by facts and figures.....next time you are at a red light in Calgary look down on the ground and around the gutters and notice all the butts and tell me that the problem isn't getting worse.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by macker

Prior to 1954 most cigarettes weren't filtered so that alone has enhanced the problem. The somewhat recent ban of indoor smoking caused a shift in cigarette disposition. Now more butts are accumulating outside and on streets etc. Also global tobacco consumption has doubled in the last 30 years (USDA). cigarette butts take up a large volume of space. If one person smokes a pack and a half a day, he will consume more than 10,000 cigarettes in a year. This number of cigarette butts (filters only --not including remnant tobacco) will fill a volume of liters. Worldwide annual consumption of cigarettes creates enough cigarette butt waste to fill more than 2,800,000,000 liters. The reason I brought up the International Coastal clean ups is because this is one measure to show how many of these butts are ending up in streams, rivers and coastal environments. In these clean ups Cigarettes have topped the list every year since it started in 1998 and the volume has been increasing since these records have been tracked (USDA). There is also a Canadian cleanup organized in Vancouver http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_C...reline_Cleanup People are starting to push back on this issue. I was in Santa Cruz in July and there was full on anti-pollution marches on the streets and save our beaches etc. and many of the mascots etc. dressed up with signs had cigarette butts pictured as noted by the stats it is the biggest pollutant in the oceans and beaches today. Too bad as they have some beautiful state beaches in the area that are completely polluted. Some of this has to do with letting the dune buggies run wild in that particular area but people just don't seem to care when they mindlessly toss stuff out. I was at these same beaches two years prior and yes the problem is getting worse. Nevermind that though and your need to have these things backed up by facts and figures.....next time you are at a red light in Calgary look down on the ground and around the gutters and notice all the butts and tell me that the problem isn't getting worse.

I don't doubt that cigarette butts are causing problems - Queensland, in Australia, has a severe butt littering problem, and is almost 20% higher than other comparable areas (kabq.org.au). Butts can get into sewer drains, water sources and can harm wildlife and human safety.

However, if we are commenting in Canada alone, and this is what we're pretty much referring to, smoking has dropped from 49% in 1965 to 18% in 2008 (cancer.ca, cbc.ca). There are far more publicly available places to put butts out now than 30 years ago, and I would venture to say that publicly smoking is far more stigmatized now than it was back then, with fewer and fewer places that people smoke publicly. It is also a known fact that where there is other litter, butts tend to be more prevalent. Beaches, for example, don't tend to have the same rules that city sidewalks do, and so 'coastal cleanup' areas are, IMO, not representative of normal urban areas. Ignorant people also tend to use beaches as one huge ashtray.

That said, I was on Kitsalano beach on Monday and for as popular as it is there, I barely saw any smokers or butts. And as for Calgary's streets, after 30 years, I don't really notice the number of butts being any worse than at any previous time. I think that one is a matter of opinion. If you're walking by bars and restaurants, sure, there's lots, but parks and things like that? It's no worse than it was in ten years ago.

I think this is one of those arguments where I see the glass as half-empty, you see it as half-full. There's way worse things on the ground in Calgary and on beaches, namely plastic and glass.

[Radio]

I can't stand butts either, they're everywhere.

They should put a $0.05 deposit on each cigarette in a pack. Then people could turn in their butts at the butt depot and get money back. You wouldn't see many butts around anymore...but you'd see shopping carts piled 6 feet high with butts.

[Dion]

[cral12]

Revitalized, as this is a major pet peeve of mind - just heard on CBC recently how bad for the environment they are as well...

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Ashartus

While some (but not all) of the carcinogens in cigarette smoke may be released in larger quantities overall by cars and fossil fuel burning, it's not the quantity released into the environment that is important but the concentration people are exposed to and the amount of time they spend exposed. Burning a few cigarettes in indoor air or in a car results in way higher exposure than the other sources. Even smoking outside can if the people breathing the smoke are directly downwind for an extended time (e.g. outdoor patio). Also the carcinogens released by burning plant material depend a lot on temperature; the lower temperature combustion occurring in cigarettes results in a much higher amount of the worst carcinogens (such as benzo[a]pyrene) being produced per mass of material burned than most other types of plant combustion (e.g. large fires).

Most of the worst carcinogens in cigarette smoke aren't really released in huge quantities from automobiles since gasoline is primarily relatively low molecular weight hydrocarbons (though emissions from diesel engines can be a bit worse). Benzene is emitted by cars of course, but benzene isn't as bad as a lot of the higher molecular weight PAH etc. in cigarette smoke and has a pretty short atmospheric half-life.

Zombie thread?

I have a really hard time believing that if you are standing on the street with cars going by burning liters upon liters of gasoline, that is worse than the emissions coming from the tip of a tobacco cigarette that someone is smoking on that same street.

[NinePack]

i used to be smoker (ex 6 years) i used to take care of my butts , I travelled to thailand and i would pick up other peoples butts and garbage . Then i would go fishing in the morning and see all these garbage bags floating from the island. what a waste of time . I dont know where im going with this. Anyway , its pisses me off