Why is this ok? Seems like littering to me…

daddyjt

I see this all the time - stopped at a traffic light, and the driver of the vehicle in front of me is smoking with their window down. When the light turns green, they drop the cigarette butt on the ground and drive off. Same thing walking into a store - they approach smoking, and as they get close to the door, the butt gets flipped out into the parking lot.

Is it just me, or is this actually littering?

PS - NO OFFENSE to any smokers out there, honest. The libertarian in me fully supports your right to smoke whatever you want (just not wherever you want.

treitz3

The first step in getting old and grumpy is to admit that you are, in fact, getting old and grumpy.

Tom

tonyb

I guess it is, just like spitting on the sidewalk could be spreading disease.

Dude, is this whats keeping you up at night ? Watch **** like the rest of us darn it. lol

Willow

I concur with the op. They should add environmental cleaning tax to smokes.

daddyjt

Ok, I suppose it's just me. Never said it "keeps me up at night" - I suppose I just don't see the difference between chucking a candy bar wrapper or pop can out my window, vs a cigarette butt... - Except only one of them can start a fire.

Carry on...

treitz3

Willow wrote: »

They should add environmental cleaning tax to smokes.

No. No new taxes on jack. Nada. Nothing. For ANY reason. Everyone is already taxed to death with things that start with suggestions like this. The money hardly EVER goes to what the intended tax is supposed to pay for.

No new taxes! (Where have I heard that before...)

TBT, part of this problem stems from another bad idea. Some nitwit thought, hey....why don't we get rid of smoke trays in vehicles and ban smoking from indoors, then lose the smoking containers outside of establishments to where smokers have nowhere to put their butts!

At the end of the day, it is littering. I have not known anyone in my life that ever got so much as even a warning for littering. Apparently, even tent cities aren't cited for littering. So much for the law, eh?

Tom

audioluvr

Smokers: The world is my ash tray

Kind of like...

Men: The world is my urinal.

Emlyn

It used to be not all that uncommon for me to see someone open their car door at a traffic light in the winter and dump their car's ash try at the curb.

Navy_Goat

Dropping a cigarette on a road or sidewalk is littering. 100% of the time. Legal or not, folks should know better. Irregardless, some people suck.

bcwsrt

I spent 30 minutes picking up trash thrown into the yard along the roadside at my parents’ home in the country today. Mostly liquor bottles. Cigarette butts I actually wouldn’t have even messed with. The mower deals with those pretty well, but bottles (and beer cans), not so much.

F1nut

I see more plastic water bottles on the side of road than much else these days. Don't get me started on how stupid I think it is to buy bottled water.

sucks2beme

In the military we had to go around picking up those
Cigarette butts. So I really hold a grudge about it.
Given how most cities have gone downhill, I guess
there's a lot of worse things. Needles, condoms and
Human poo come to mind. Thanks gen x and
millennials.

nooshinjohn

Navy_Goat wrote: »

Dropping a cigarette on a road or sidewalk is littering. 100% of the time. Legal or not, folks should know better. Irregardless, some people suck.

No smoking in a government vehicle here in California… I witnessed and photographed a CHP officer dump dozens of butts out of his vehicle after he exited the freeway, a couple still smoldering. I followed him to his HQ and showed the pictures to a lieutenant… I usually would have cared less, but CHP are generally assholios in the L.A. area, and it was a high-wind day during fire season, and the area this occurred at was an exceptionally high risk location…

msg

F1nut wrote: »

I see more plastic water bottles on the side of road than much else these days. Don't get me started on how stupid I think it is to buy bottled water.

Couldn't agree more. I drink exclusively from a pewter tankard filled from a sunbaked garden hose. I keep it clean with Brasso, inside and out, once a week. Saves money and the environment.

tonyb

Can't stand bottle water myself either, but it's which devil is worse kind of situation. Tap water now has so many drugs and estrogen in it....ontop of the usual flouride and chlorine. Bottle water is like dead water, everything stripped, then add back in a packed of minerals and call it spring water. Probably been sitting in that plastic bottle for months on end too and if it sits long enough, in the heat, that plastic starts to leach out into the water. Remember that next time your in the south on a 90+ degree day and a water truck pulls up to unload cases at your grocery store.

Speaking of flouride, you guys remember when they put it into toothpaste ? Even put warning labels on it to not swallow it because the flouride was poison so rinse and spit. So , must of been Fauci's father who around 1945 decided it was a great idea to add flouride to tap water...you know, to keep those teeth sparkling new.

So, pick your poison, neither is good anymore, but from an environmental standpoint, plastic bottles don't degrade, butts do though. A thousand years from now, someone digging in their yard won't know if you smoked a Marlboro or Kool, but they'll know you liked Coke or Pepsi or bottled water.

I don't understand why the environmental police don't attack the bottled water people. I mean, they went after the plastic straw . So the solution to that one was a paper straw...wrapped in....wait for it....plastic.

daddyjt

We've had a reverse osmosis system in every house we've owned for the past 30 years. Our first one was rather expensive ($500 in mid-90s money) and quite complicated - especially the filter changes. The one we have now is very simple - so little water spilled during filter changes that a single paper towel is sufficient for clean up. We use the RO water for drinking and cooking, and there's an aux line run to the ice maker in the fridge. After becoming accustomed to RO water, all bottled water has a weird taste...

sucks2beme

Bottled water. If you drink it right after they bottle it, you'll come
down with a wicked case of runs. Seems the outgassing of the
plastic needs time to dissipate. If stored too long, it can also
go bad.

pitdogg2

daddyjt wrote: »

We've had a reverse osmosis system in every house we've owned for the past 30 years. Our first one was rather expensive ($500 in mid-90s money) and quite complicated - especially the filter changes. The one we have now is very simple - so little water spilled during filter changes that a single paper towel is sufficient for clean up. We use the RO water for drinking and cooking, and there's an aux line run to the ice maker in the fridge. After becoming accustomed to RO water, all bottled water has a weird taste...

That is because with RO taking out 95-99% of all the minerals. There is very little left with the exception of the wet.

daddyjt

pitdogg2 wrote: »

daddyjt wrote: »

We've had a reverse osmosis system in every house we've owned for the past 30 years. Our first one was rather expensive ($500 in mid-90s money) and quite complicated - especially the filter changes. The one we have now is very simple - so little water spilled during filter changes that a single paper towel is sufficient for clean up. We use the RO water for drinking and cooking, and there's an aux line run to the ice maker in the fridge. After becoming accustomed to RO water, all bottled water has a weird taste...

That is because with RO taking out 95-99% of all the minerals. There is very little left with the exception of the wet.

I was made aware of that when I bought my first unit. We (the family) take supplements regularly that contain needed minerals. For me, it is a trade off that I am more than happy to make, not having to wonder what is in the municipal water supply.

If I lived out in the rural sticks and had my own well, then I would most likely forgo the RO unit - but on municipal water? I wouldn't go without it...

mhardy6647

msg wrote: »

F1nut wrote: »

I see more plastic water bottles on the side of road than much else these days. Don't get me started on how stupid I think it is to buy bottled water.

Couldn't agree more. I drink exclusively from a pewter tankard filled from a sunbaked garden hose. I keep it clean with Brasso, inside and out, once a week. Saves money and the environment.

Good call. Nothing's likely to grow in it -- and if something does... you won't suffer. It'll be quick.

mhardy6647

Yeah, cigarette butts being dumped are (still) a big problem.
Here, the peak time for brushfires is in the spring just after the snow melts and the terrain dries out. There is a lot of dead, dry grass and brush. It is not at all uncommon to see brushfires on highways here in the mid to late spring, often near exit/entrance ramps. Wonder why?

skipshot12

mhardy6647 wrote: »

Yeah, cigarette butts being dumped are (still) a big problem.
Here, the peak time for brushfires is in the spring just after the snow melts and the terrain dries out. There is a lot of dead, dry grass and brush. It is not at all uncommon to see brushfires on highways here in the mid to late spring, often near exit/entrance ramps. Wonder why?

I had pics of us @ hurricane andrew restoration where anheuser busch brought in dump truck loads after another with those cans of water piled into huge mounds... people would come in and pick up whatever they could carry. They were actually in six packs.
Was incredible to see what we can do when it's needed.

mrbigbluelight

Pic of brush fires seemingly stopping at the Canadian border.
There were a FEW brush fires in British Columbia but nothing on the level of good ol' American West Coast brush fires.



Could be for several reasons

1. Canada sprays their trees with fire proof material.
2. Canadians don't smoke so they don't cause fires along the highways.
3. Pyscho West Coasters who puposely drive highways and cause fires don't want to cross the border.
4. Not as many Canadian firefighters are looking for overtime

mrbigbluelight

F1nut

Look at all that air pollution out west, particularly in CA. They had better ban forest fires quick like.