Thursday, February 12, 2009

Do you consider discarding a just finished cigarette butt on the ground littering? And how does it compare to tossing a wrapper or a styrofoam cup?

16 comments:

Unknown said...

Yes, it's littering and it's worse than a wrapper or a styrofoam cup for three reasons.
1)If a bird or squirrel eats it they'd probably die painfully from all the carcinogens.
2) Discarding it could burn someone (true story, got a hole in my favorite jeans once because the wind caught a butt as someone threw it away and it basically ended up being snuffed out on my jeans).
3)It could start a fire.

John said...

No, and for this reason. If you put a wrapper or a cup in a trash can...there's a 0% chance that can catches fire in 5 minutes.

Having said that, if there's an ashing area near, use that. Tossing on the ground near an ash tray is literring.

Anonymous said...

yes, it's littering. I feel like these are all equally bad.

pinchie said...

As a smoker i still say yes, it's littering. plenty of DC trash cans where you can walk a few extra steps. But...tossing styrofoam is way worse.

Anonymous said...

While I do think it is littering, I don't think it compares to tossing a wrapper or a styrofoam cup. A wrapper is far larger in size and harder to clean up because of its weight. A foam cup is non-biodegradeable, whereas a cigarette butt is. But I do think it makes an area look like Janice ... cheap.

Dan said...

It's littering, but I don't think it's as bad as a wrapper or styrofoam cup. As in several other pursuits, size matters when it comes to litter. So a styrofoam cup is worse than a cigarette, a milk carton is worse than a cup, a refrigerator is worse than a carton, and on and on. But glass is in a class by itself.

Mike said...

Its all bad. Throw it away. Keep our city clean.

Laura S said...

yes, tossing cigarettes on the ground is littering... and I get mad when people flick them out of their cars... makes me feel like road rage! watch out, smokers! I don't think people should smoke and if they must they shouldn't impose it on others (via second hand smoke or littering). I guess there's one good thing about smoking... it's supporting health care for kids... thanks Obama.

Cate said...

Yes. Totes littering. My hippie friends in Austin would keep the butt in the cigarette pack until they could dispose of it somewhere appropriate. I always thought it was weird that all of the super progressive, tree-hugger hippies smoked.

Its just as bad as tossing a wrapper or a styrofoam cup.

0 littering tolerance.

Unknown said...

Yes it is lettering, but not as bad as wrappers/styrofoam cups. I definitely have less of a problem with people stomping them out on the sidewalk as opposed to tossing them out the window when driving through the country.

John said...

I'm actually going to ask for a mulligan on this.

Okay, it clearly is littering. Ideally, you stub it and toss it away.

However, I can say I often litter cigs without a moment's pause. Would not dream of doing that with wrappers or cups (styrofoam, plastic, made of biodegradable hemp, whatever). Therefore, the cups/wrapper is worse.

beenu said...

omg where did this come from? i actually started a bit of controversy at penn state my freshman year. i was in this poli sci class where we had a group project to impove some environmental aspect of the campus and our group addressed the littering of cigarette butts. it even led to a "referrendum" on making the campus smoke free. that didn't go over well but my group was partially responsible for the many "butt bins" that were placed all over campus.

so in short, YES IT IS LITTERING!!!!! also, butts take at least 5 years to biodegrade completely, so it's not like it's disappearing on its own overnight.

K8 said...

BEENU! You did that crap on campus?!!? that's so funny. i never knew! when i was smoking smorgs outside my dorm in my patchwork pants (yup) i never knew!

Yes it's littering. I smoke sometimes and I'm concious of butt removal. But we all do things we shouldn't do sometimes. like eat mcdonalds and watch maury povitch. oh maury....

Anonymous said...

It is soo littering. And it annoys me that smokers just toss butts on the ground like it is their own personal ashtray.

tamika said...

Yep, it's littering. I've been burned several times just hanging on the mean streets of NC.

But what angers me more than people that litter with cigs are spitters. Let's talk about how gross that is.

beenu said...

true dat. i'm more disgusted by spitters than butts.