Posted on 11/24/2003 7:59:46 AM PST by Scenic Sounds
Bans on smoking indoors have had an unintended consequence: more cigarette butts littering the outdoors.
It is an issue some people are beginning to regard as a serious environmental problem.
Across the nation, anti-litter activists are launching campaigns to get smokers to clean up after themselves.
And anti-tobacco activists are using the concern to push for outdoor smoking bans, as happened last month in Solana Beach. The North County city became the first in the state to ban smoking at the beach when its new law took effect Thursday.
The environmental message: Cigarette butts release contaminants into waterways, choke wildlife and take years to biodegrade.
"I pick up hundreds of them," said Jim Peugh, chairman of the conservation committee of the San Diego Audubon Society. "It's a huge concern."
Even as cigarette sales have decreased in the United States over the past decade, activists say there is anecdotal evidence that cigarette litter has increased.
Why? Some say laws banning smoking indoors have forced smokers outdoors, where there are fewer ashtrays or other disposal receptacles.
CigaretteLitter.org, based in Culver City, promotes free pocket ashtrays offered by cigarette maker R.J. Reynolds' Smokers for a Clean America campaign.
Of course, smokers long have flicked their cigarette butts out car windows, in parking lots, along sidewalks and at the beach.
Smokers may mistakenly think cigarette filters are cotton. Almost all filtered cigarettes sold after 1954 use cellulose acetate, a type of plastic that takes up to 11 years to biodegrade.
"Back in the '70s, ashtrays in cars were actually filled with cigarette butts," said Marco Gonzalez, chairman of the local chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. "Now, they're filled with change and knickknacks. People don't want their cars to stink."
This past summer, Surfrider members held up signs on street corners in coastal areas of San Diego County, urging smokers to "Hold onto your butt."
The foundation is working with the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority to bring the same message by advertisement to travelers at Lindbergh Field.
Surfrider also has public service announcements for television in the works. To finance their production, the organization sold two surfboards signed by musicians in the rock band Pearl Jam on eBay, bringing in $10,000.
The announcements – starring celebrities whose identities Surfrider won't disclose – are expected to air nationwide beginning in May.
Anti-tobacco activists have jumped on the bandwagon and also are invoking the environment in their efforts to ban smoking outdoors.
A group of 35 high-school students who picked up more than 6,300 cigarette butts from North County beaches used environmental arguments to persuade the Solana Beach City Council to ban smoking at the beach and in parks.
Solana Beach Mayor Tom Golich said the council went ahead with the ban on smoking because it didn't want its coastline and parks turned into ashtrays.
At last year's Coastal Cleanup Day in San Diego County, volunteers picked up more than 68,000 cigarette butts – the most prevalent litter – at beaches and along inland waterways. Figures for last month's cleanup aren't available.
But it's not just the beaches. As almost anyone can attest, cigarette butts are a common form of curbside litter. Metered freeway on-ramps and left-hand turn lanes are particular trouble spots.
Along California's highways, the state Highway Patrol last year cited 5,684 motorists for tossing cigarettes out the window, 10 percent more than in previous years. It is a violation that is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000.
"It's a pet peeve of mine," CHP Officer Jim Bettencourt said.
Once, he said, a burning cigarette landed on the hood of his patrol car.
Nationwide, smokers consumed 425 billion cigarettes in 2001, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
That amounts to about 160 million pounds of cigarette butts, according to Clean Virginia Waterways, founded by Kathleen Register, faculty member at Longwood College in Virginia and author of one of the few scientific studies on the effects of cigarette litter on the environment.
Register looked at the effects of nicotine and other chemicals found in cigarette butts on water fleas, small transparent crustaceans.
Nicotine, found in tobacco leaves, is a powerful insecticide. Water fleas are commonly used to determine the toxicity of polluted water.
All of the water fleas in Register's study died within two days when they were exposed to two or more used cigarette filters in a half-gallon of water. All of the water fleas that were kept in a container of clean water lived.
Register went on to found Clean Virginia Waterways to educate the public about the problem of cigarette litter.
"Personally, I believe that educating smokers, just like we've educated people who drink sodas, is going to make the biggest inroads on this issue," Register said.
Cigarette maker Philip Morris, a founding member of Keep America Beautiful, says part of the problem is that there aren't enough ashtrays outdoors in public places. It has mailed pamphlets promoting the use of personal ashtrays, small pocket-sized receptacles, to some of its customers.
Not everyone views cigarette litter as a looming environmental problem.
"I don't consider that a big issue," said Fred Lorenzen, a Sierra Club member. "It's something we all have to do individually. There are more important things we have to deal with, like new developments, saving the backcountry, making sure the water is good quality."
Kathryn Balint: (619) 293-2848; kathryn.balint@uniontrib.com
Public smoking can be consistent with good citizenship!
And all of the radical environmentalists are half-baked, half-ashed and half-witted.
FMCDH
And it should be strongly enforced. Throwing a lit butt out of a window in CA can burn half the state down.
But...the "problem" of butt disposal will never go away. I find it hard to believe things are worse now than when a majority of people smoked. Here in Baltimore, the trees are festooned with plastic grocery bags. Where do the anti-smoking zealots stand on the tree bag problem?
The debate has multiple levels. In my opinion, laws banning smoking in privately owned establishments such as bars and restaurants are a gross usurpation of property rights. The owners of such businesses should be free to allow any otherwise legal activity at their discretion.
The second-hand smoke issue is a canard presented by tortious miscreants looking to make a buck off of junk science. There are absolutely no statistics indicating "second hand smoke" is anything other than an annoyance to those who do not smoke. Well, no legitimate statistics, I should say.
This call to arms against butts is I suppose a fairly new one; it is rooted in sound thinking. Littering is a bad thing. But, as the article indicates, as smoking is restricted, the places in which the butts can be safely discarded vanish as well.
The easy thing to do is simply say the smoker is wrong, and punish him for careless disposal of butts. But the smoker does not behave in strictly rational ways. The smoker is aware that his very life is likely to be shortened because of his habit. You don't think he's going to refrain from the occasional butt-flick out the car window because we're threatening to take some cash? If the prevalence of discarded butts is a serious issue, then the appropriate way to address it is to think of ways to actually solve the problem, rather than just spanking smokers.
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