Cigarette Butt Rant!

AdamZ

AdamZ

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
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Display name:
Adam Zucker
I recall this anti pollution and anti litter commercial from when I was a kid. I think it could almost be called iconic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7OHG7tHrNM

I really think since the 1960s as a country we've come pretty far when it comes to not littering.

One thing that perplexes me however is why it appears that so many smokers continue to flick their cigarette butts on the ground. They flick them out car windows, flick them as they walk down the block, as they sit and wait for a train etc. For sure there must be responsible folks who smoke who discard their cigarette butts properly but can someone explain to me why so many people have no qualms about flicking that butt out their window? Really I don't get it. Cars have ash trays. For heavens sake people with Dogs walk around with plastic bags to pick up dog doo! Why can't these people hold on to their cigarette butts?:mad:

My guess is these same people would not even consider throwing an empty soda or coffee cup or a balled up breakfast sandwich wrapper out the window. I walk out in front of my building ( which has a smokers pole) and down the block to grab lunch and the number of cig butts on the sidewalk or in the gutter are out of hand. There's no other litter there just butts.

End of rant!
 
AdamZ said:
My guess is these same people would not even consider throwing an empty soda or coffee cup or a balled up breakfast sandwich wrapper out the window. I walk out in front of my building ( which has a smokers pole) and down the block to grab lunch and the number of cig butts on the sidewalk or in the gutter are out of hand. There's no other litter there just butts.
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What's a "smoker's pole"?
 
roncachamp said:
What's a "smoker's pole"?
Click to expand...

A trashcan designed specifically for cigs. Usually 3 feet or so tall, sometimes large at the base, almost always narrow at the top, and with a very small opening (to prevent other types of trash from being deposited).

I've never used LMGTFY before, but thought I'd try it for this...(disregard the snarky comment on the LMGTFY page)

http://bit.ly/19ltHfU
 
But why clean up after yoursefl when someone else can do it for you.?

By that logic, littering smokers are job creators!
 
AdamZ said:
I recall this anti pollution and anti litter commercial from when I was a kid. I think it could almost be called iconic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7OHG7tHrNM

I really think since the 1960s as a country we've come pretty far when it comes to not littering.

One thing that perplexes me however is why it appears that so many smokers continue to flick their cigarette butts on the ground. They flick them out car windows, flick them as they walk down the block, as they sit and wait for a train etc. For sure there must be responsible folks who smoke who discard their cigarette butts properly but can someone explain to me why so many people have no qualms about flicking that butt out their window? Really I don't get it. Cars have ash trays. For heavens sake people with Dogs walk around with plastic bags to pick up dog doo! Why can't these people hold on to their cigarette butts?:mad:

My guess is these same people would not even consider throwing an empty soda or coffee cup or a balled up breakfast sandwich wrapper out the window. I walk out in front of my building ( which has a smokers pole) and down the block to grab lunch and the number of cig butts on the sidewalk or in the gutter are out of hand. There's no other litter there just butts.

End of rant!
Click to expand...

Take a drive through Eastern Kentucky sometime. It is called laziness.

Having a 55 gal burn barrel to burn ALL trash was pretty common 30 years ago. Some still do it to save $14/mo for trash pickup. The EPA will investigate if you call. Well, maybe not this week.
 
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Adam, your points are all well-taken. But if I were a smoker, considering the relentless government nannyism to make it as inconvenient as possible for them to indulge for about the past two decades, I wouldn't be very receptive to a charm offensive re: butt control.

It even getting to the point that the FDA wants to regulate new electronic cigarettes that emit nothing but water vapor.
 
AdamZ said:
I recall this anti pollution and anti litter commercial from when I was a kid. I think it could almost be called iconic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7OHG7tHrNM

I really think since the 1960s as a country we've come pretty far when it comes to not littering.

One thing that perplexes me however is why it appears that so many smokers continue to flick their cigarette butts on the ground. They flick them out car windows, flick them as they walk down the block, as they sit and wait for a train etc. For sure there must be responsible folks who smoke who discard their cigarette butts properly but can someone explain to me why so many people have no qualms about flicking that butt out their window? Really I don't get it. Cars have ash trays. For heavens sake people with Dogs walk around with plastic bags to pick up dog doo! Why can't these people hold on to their cigarette butts?:mad:

My guess is these same people would not even consider throwing an empty soda or coffee cup or a balled up breakfast sandwich wrapper out the window. I walk out in front of my building ( which has a smokers pole) and down the block to grab lunch and the number of cig butts on the sidewalk or in the gutter are out of hand. There's no other litter there just butts.

End of rant!
Click to expand...

If I had to guess, I say the difference is that soda cans, coffee cups, and sandwich wrappers aren't on fire. But yeah, it's puzzling. I have the same problem here. My friends who smoke consider the entire outdoors to be an ashtray -- and I have actual ashtrays outside.

Frankly, I wouldn't really care except for the filters. The rest is organic and will quickly decompose, but the filters are pretty much forever.

-Rich
 
MSPAviator said:
Smokers are disgusting, repulsive people.
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Eh. Some are, some aren't. When I still smoked I was pretty courteous about it. I used my car's ashtray and the ubiquitous smokers' poles for their intended purposes, because I knew that pretty much anything tossed in the street in NYC (where I lived then) eventually wound up on the beaches because of how the storm drain system is set up.

That's part of why it baffles me that most of my friends who still smoke, toss their butts literally anywhere. I was a smoker, and I didn't do that.

-Rich
 
I am a non smoker...never smoked one cigarette...but don't care if smoker's smoke...

I am 1000% with Adam on this one...the littering part is inexcusable.


I have even gone as far as get out of my car at a stoplight after seeing a smoker flick a butt onto the pavement and "flick" it back in their car...

You cannot imagine the immense smugness and self righteousness I felt when I did this...:yes:

I have been cussed and even been apologized to...but I will not apologize for this...

I hope I don't get beat up...
 
MSPAviator said:
Smokers are disgusting, repulsive people.
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Yup, that and really really stupid. Never mind the ubiquitous and fairly obvious health hazards (who in their right mind ever thought inhaling burning vegetable matter was a good idea?) but those suckers are 5 bucks a pack! Bloody expensive!

Still, if someone is that stupid and has that little regard for their body and the bodies of those around them I am unsurprised that they hold their environment in such low regard.

Anyone found smoking in the Steinholme is assumed to be on fire and treated accordingly.
 
DJTorrente said:
It even getting to the point that the FDA wants to regulate new electronic cigarettes that emit nothing but water vapor.
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So does the FAA. I'm not sure if they think they're helping us with our health or it's part of their general ban on electronic devices.

Illegal to throw cigarettes out the window in California. God bless Paul Buzzo.
 
Kelvin said:
I am a non smoker...never smoked one cigarette...but don't care if smoker's smoke...

I am 1000% with Adam on this one...the littering part is inexcusable.


I have even gone as far as get out of my car at a stoplight after seeing a smoker flick a butt onto the pavement and "flick" it back in their car...

You cannot imagine the immense smugness and self righteousness I felt when I did this...:yes:

I have been cussed and even been apologized to...but I will not apologize for this...

I hope I don't get beat up...
Click to expand...

Doing that in Detroit could get you shot.:yes:
 
Back when that was made I would watch that and think, that dude is old, today he don't look that old.
Also back then I am sure whom ever was around remembers that we had rivers that would burn. Amazing to see a river on fire and sad.
 
Norman said:
As are those who constantly deride others. Tell us you don't have any habits others dislike.
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133831.jpg


I know a worse one.
 
I love the smokers that hold their cigarettes outside their car windows. Their car is too nice to smell like smoke, but they don't mind dousing their lungs with it.
 
I dunno - we end up with nice new growth of grass in the medians and on the sides of the road each year thanks to butts being tossed out car windows and starting grass fires.
 
flyingron said:
So does the FAA. I'm not sure if they think they're helping us with our health or it's part of their general ban on electronic devices.

Illegal to throw cigarettes out the window in California. God bless Paul Buzzo.
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I used the e-cigs for a while. They took the edge off until I eventually stopped using them. I still have them, though. I think having them around helps psychologically.

I also know several people who were only able to quit smoking after they stashed a full, fresh pack of (real) cigarettes away somewhere in the house. They found it easier to quit knowing that they had a pack stored away. Personally, if I had a pack stashed away, I would have smoked them the next day.

Addiction is a funny thing. My take on it is to do whatever works for you, and don't try to understand it.

-Rich
 
AdamZ said:
My guess is these same people would not even consider throwing an empty soda or coffee cup or a balled up breakfast sandwich wrapper out the window. I walk out in front of my building ( which has a smokers pole) and down the block to grab lunch and the number of cig butts on the sidewalk or in the gutter are out of hand. There's no other litter there just butts.

End of rant!
Click to expand...


Maybe in your part of the country.
They certainly throw them here --- especially into peoples' private yards
-- the same people who drive around without mufflers and have their boom boxes set at 140 dB
:mad:
 
PaulS said:
I am a smoker, the world is my ashtray........
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You beat me to it. I would have worded it "To a smoker, the world looks like an ashtray", but that's just wording.

I know there are considerate smokers, but so many are not. And those filters do not fall apart.
 
Used to be ash trays at the end of the aisles in the grocery store. Then the serial whiners got their way and you can't smoke within a mile of a building now, so smokers are standing in the middle of nowhere smoking, what do you thin someone ****ed off standing outside in the heat/rain/cold is going to do with their lit cancer stick?
 
I am a nonsmoker, have always been a nonsmoker, and personally think it is a terrible habit. My mom who died in June from smoking related complications(endstage COPD) was a smoker until she went to Hawaii in 2004 and had to be taken off of the volcano she was visiting in a stretcher, and spent the next two weeks of her vacation in the hospital. She got off the oxygen for about a year(took almost 2 years), then had a appendectomy and for the last 7 years of her life was on oxygen. She wished she never started smoking. So do I, my sisters, and our children, and my little sister's grandchildren. My dad has not been the same. I do not know if he will ever be.

As for cigarette butts being thrown on the ground, I think it has more to do a lack of respect more than anything else. I have had on three occasions butts enter my open window from them being thrown out of cars. When I was a kid I got hit in the face with a butt my moms friend threw out the car and it came back in through the back window. I now drive with my windows closed.
 
An employee who consumed at least 1 pack of cigarettes while at work and possible another while at home once came to my office to discuss a raise in pay. When asked how much, he named an amount per week he needed to have as take home pay.

He wasn't very amused when I showed him the additional amount he wanted would be covered by what he paid for cigarettes and he would have it near immediately if he quit smoking.
 
AggieMike88 said:
He wasn't very amused when I showed him the additional amount he wanted would be covered by what he paid for cigarettes and he would have it near immediately if he quit smoking.
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You can't tell me how to spend my money ;)
 
AggieMike88 said:
An employee who consumed at least 1 pack of cigarettes while at work and possible another while at home once came to my office to discuss a raise in pay. When asked how much, he named an amount per week he needed to have as take home pay.

He wasn't very amused when I showed him the additional amount he wanted would be covered by what he paid for cigarettes and he would have it near immediately if he quit smoking.
Click to expand...

I'll have to remember that line! :D
As a life long non-smoker, I used to be amazed at how inconsiderate some smokers are, now I realize that it's just people in general that are inconsiderate. :mad2:
 
One of my pet peeves, is LIT cigarettes being recklessly thrown away. It's one thing if the cigarettes are snuffed out, but it's much more egregious if the cigarettes are lit. Littering is bad enough, fire hazard takes things to a much higher level.
 
AdamZ said:
One thing that perplexes me however is why it appears that so many smokers continue to flick their cigarette butts on the ground. They flick them out car windows, flick them as they walk down the block, as they sit and wait for a train etc.
Click to expand...

The world is their ash tray.
 
The thing I really dislike is when people use their car's ashtray and then dump it in the middle of a parking lot.
 
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