get to a street they don't clean and it's even uglier...

[acroyear]

Cigarette Butts - Tiny Trash That Piles Up - NYTimes.com:

Andrea Scott says she would never throw a candy wrapper on the ground.

“Littering is one of my pet peeves, and I always told my kids they’d be in big trouble if I catch them doing it,” said Ms. Scott, a 43-year-old financial executive, as she sat outside an office tower on Michigan Avenue in Chicago on a recent sunny afternoon. “I see people throw stuff out their car windows, and I cringe.”

Yet she confesses that she routinely discards cigarette butts on the sidewalk.

For her and countless other American smokers, cigarette butts are an exception to the no-littering rule. “Aren’t cigarettes biodegradable?” volunteered Libby Moustakas, a co-worker who was enjoying a smoking break with Ms. Scott.

But dozens of municipalities across the nation have had enough. Weary of the butts’ unsightliness and the costs of sweeping them up, cities have passed bans on smoking on beaches and playgrounds. In San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom said last week that he would go a step further, seeking a 33-cents-a-pack tax to cover the $11 million that the city spends annually to remove cigarette litter.

Nationally, cigarette butts account for one-quarter or more of the items tossed onto streets and other roadways, San Francisco and other cities report.

Nathan Ballard, a spokesman for Mr. Newsom, described this as a predictable outcome of poor product design. “There is no good practical way of dealing with cigarettes,” he said. “You have a fiery object in your hand and so you have to throw it down and crush it under your heel. And then we have to clean it up.”

I used to walk from my apartment in Harrisonburg to the Pondo by way of a back road (Country Club Rd) to avoid the worst of the US 33 traffic and noise (as well as the pedestrian-unfriendly interstate cloverleaf), and found zillions of butts on the side of the road, outnumbering the grains of sand.

Now, what the articles *doesn't* talk about is the worse practice than even just throwing it on the ground and stepping on it - the practice of just tossing the still lit butt out of an open car window at 75mph on the freeway, especially on a drought year in the middle of California brushland.  One family (it's rumored) lost everything in their trailer on their way to Pennsic a few years ago due to a butt landing in it and catching fire to a sheet.

Comments

[dawntreader]

littering is also one of my biggest pet peeves. CIGARETTE butt littering is my biggest of the littering pet peeves and it's attitudes like that woman that pisses me off the most! WTF, lady? it's not someone else's job to clean up after you!

so whether it's "biodegradable" or not is immaterial. it takes a long time to biodegrade, and YOUR TRASHY SHIT is sitting on PUBLIC PROPERTY with everyone else's biodegradable trashy shit. it looks great! thanks a lot assholes.

you are a double asshole ESPECIALLY when it's not even put out first. YAY! firestarting for all. (can you tell this is a supreme hot button for me?)

[sestree.livejournal.com]

Tossing butts out the window is something I hate as well. I often drive with the jeep down and so far (knock wood) haven't had one land in the car.

Still .....

Having grown up around wheat fields, they are stomped and go in my pocket or are doused and go in a trash can when a proper recepticle isn't available.

[fiona64.livejournal.com]

My ex-husband was active duty military; he not only stomps, but strips the butts and then puts them in his pocket for disposal later. The soldiers all learn that for FTX (field training exercises) ... they're often out in the woods, etc.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

I'm suddenly reminded of the Doonesbury set in Lebenon in '82 where Roland is interviewing a Major who interrupts to yell at a soldier to pick up that cigarette butt right now, as "WE'RE GUESTS IN THIS COUNTRY, SOLDIER!"

(with Roland giving the usual Doonesbury perplexed look...)

[dawntreader]

that's what TWD does. i admit it's slightly annoying to sort laundry and find butts in his pockets. once in awhile they even get washed by accident. but that's only slightly annoying.

it's far better than if they were all over the ground somewhere. *g*

as for your wheat field comment, during drought season in the mountains of colorado (and probably even stricter since i left) you can't even smoke outside. period. you have to be in a closed vehicle or you face massive penalties.