Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash • Hacker News Board

Re: Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash

#141

Post by snarfy » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 5:27 PM UTC

ip26 wrote: post #104

krisroadruck wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity, do you also think its totally fine to treat fat people negatively? Ugh. The amount of vitriol in this whole comment section towards smokers is disturbing. Almost every smoker I know picked up the habit in their early teens. A habit which is extremely addicting, and very hard to kick, more so the longer you've been doing it. Being shitty to them certainly wont help. At the macro level first they…

I am generally on your side of the fence- I think we forget smokers are also people- but where you choose to smoke is still an active choice. Most of the ire I see directed at smokers is for smoking around pregnant women, infants, and in public places they aren't supposed to be smoking. And for all the cigarette butts. All of these things are active choices.

By calling it a choice you misunderstand what the word addiction means. It's like blaming an overweight person for being overweight because they could not make the choice to put the fork down. It's a choice, right?

Re: Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash

#142

Post by duncan-donuts » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 5:29 PM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #5

Only tangentially related, but I am continually astonished by the absence of any sort of social norms surrounding cigarette butt disposal. I have (otherwise environmentally conscious!) friends who smoke, and I've personally witnessed them flick their cigarettes into gutters and on streets. As a serious question, without judgment: are there any smokers on HN who can explain the phenomenon?

Former smoker (who still smokes occasionally) — I think there’s also some hive mind with it as well. I started smoking as a teenager and never really considered the effect of throwing butts on the ground. It’s just what I saw everyone else doing. If I smoke now I always put my cigarette out and throw the butt away.

Re: Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash

#143

Post by soneil » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #21

woodruffw wrote: post #5

Only tangentially related, but I am continually astonished by the absence of any sort of social norms surrounding cigarette butt disposal. I have (otherwise environmentally conscious!) friends who smoke, and I've personally witnessed them flick their cigarettes into gutters and on streets. As a serious question, without judgment: are there any smokers on HN who can explain the phenomenon?

(I don't smoke and have never smoked) For some people it's as simple as not wanting to carry around some dirty stinking cigarette butts. Portable ashtrays are sometimes produced, but they never seem to catch on. And we shouldn't ignore the power of the really strong habit they've formed of flicking them away.

I was given one of those "portable ashtrays". A little padded pouch that felt somewhere between foil and plastic.

It worked, in that you could put out a cigarette in it and store the remains. But it stank to high heaven. I don't recall it seeing a lot of re-use.

Most of my butts went in the gutter, but I'm still not sure I could explain the mindset. They feel fluffy so you don't mentally associate it with plastic, and they're the part that's painted to look like a natural texture.

So I made a point of flicking them in the gutter rather than the sidewalk, so they'd be either washed away by rain, or taken care of by the street-sweepers.

I can see in retrospect that neither is actually a solution. I can't really explain it. There's a lot of habitual behaviours around cigarettes besides the addictive substances. When I quit, I found the hardest part wasn't the lack of chemicals, it was missing that 10 minute break where it was somehow socially acceptable to leave my desk to stand outside and have a chat with the usual crowd.

Smoking isn't a habit. It's 20 or so habits that all reinforce each other. I quit about 18 months ago, and I still have the continual feeling that I've left something behind that I shouldn't have, because my pockets don't have the expected load-out. So I have a short mini-panic that I've forgotten my keys, or my wallet, or .. and then I realise I've forgotten my smokes & lighter.

I recently found myself making a mental note to stock up before Christmas because the stores would be closed. There's a lot of practiced behaviours that look nonsensical in isolation.

Re: Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash

#144

Post by thaumasiotes » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

cbluth wrote: post #53

cgag wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are tons of benefits which is why people do it

I hear death has some great benefits too, everyone's doing it.

You probably didn't mean to be correct, but it happened anyway. A virus is immortal. The macro-organisms we're all familiar with will age and die even under ideal circumstances; there is no fundamental reason for this to be necessary. But we evolved to do it because it offered advantages over the more traditional ageless immortality.

Re: Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash

#145

Post by wrigby » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 5:37 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #122

Why do people even smoke cigarettes when there are vapes for those who just want to inhale and exhale a cloud getting nicotine and cigars for those who want to enjoy real tobacco? Cigarettes are disgusting, toxic, expensive (as compared to a supply of liquid) and inconvenient (as you can't just inhale at any time you want). Why non-biodegradable cig filters are still not outlawed is another mystery.

I may have some insight here. As a smoker that's trying to quit (14 days clean so far), a Juul just doesn't appeal to me - I'd rather quit than switch. Apart from the nicotine addiction, smoking involves a lot of rituals - for example, I personally choose a lucky[1], and I love the sound and smells of striking the Zippo that I carried. A Juul doesn't offer those experiences, and cigars are much too heavy for me to smoke daily.

This scene from Frasier is spot on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptqRrwvYVTs&t=126

1: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lucky%20ciga...

Re: Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash

#146

Post by DoctorOetker » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

shireboy wrote: post #74

kevcampb wrote: post #60

The Ocean Conservancy report has been cited by quite a few articles now, and it pains me every time I see it. As ever, the conclusions drawn are quite misleading. 1) The source of the data is cleanup on beaches, not ocean trash. If anything it's more likely to be representative of items discarded on beaches or waterways. 2) Cigarette butts are greatest purely in number of individual pieces, not in terms of weight or…

Then it was also 10 Asian rivers that account for most plastic: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plas... I guess I understand it is a hard problem to calculate, but it is an area where I wish the approach was more reasoned and less governed by fad and hype. Sure clean and prevent straws and cigarette butts if that’s really a problem, but divvy our resources in proportion to where data says the…

For any kind of pollution, the prime polluter has incentive to spread factoids pointing to significant other polluters.

The comment you respond to mentions fishing nets to be the biggest pollutant by volume (which is quite logical if one thinks about it). Obviously a marine source has incentive to highlight landbased sources such as rivers. If one hears about the most polluting river one is easily confused into thinking rivers are the biggest polluter. Also note the questions surrounding metric of river pollution (i.e. per capita pollution of rivers and so on ...)

Re: Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash

#147

Post by deanCommie » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 5:53 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #84

shireboy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it was also 10 Asian rivers that account for most plastic: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plas... I guess I understand it is a hard problem to calculate, but it is an area where I wish the approach was more reasoned and less governed by fad and hype. Sure clean and prevent straws and cigarette butts if that’s really a problem, but divvy our resources in proportion to where data says the…

The Asian rivers was something I learned fairly recently. It wasn't a big shock, but it wasn't obvious either. Do you know if the report also broke down the rivers by size and waterfront population? IE, do the communities along those Asian rivers pollute more than those in the US or EU, or are they simply the largest rivers in the world by volume and/or local population? (Yes, I know the Ganges in filthy)

I imagine, being in China, the pollution is also an externality of the manufacturing for the entire world that Europe/US is happy to occur in China instead of locally.

Re: Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash

#148

Post by belorn » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 5:54 PM UTC

kevcampb wrote: post #60

The Ocean Conservancy report has been cited by quite a few articles now, and it pains me every time I see it. As ever, the conclusions drawn are quite misleading. 1) The source of the data is cleanup on beaches, not ocean trash. If anything it's more likely to be representative of items discarded on beaches or waterways. 2) Cigarette butts are greatest purely in number of individual pieces, not in terms of weight or…

If we combine that data with data on annual amount of plastic being thrown into the ocean, we get 4 tons of fishing nets per year being lost by the part of the finish industry that use fishing nets.

Buying new fishing nets are quite expensive, and by experience, fishermen tend to spend a large part of the year repairing them. I wonder what the lost rate is per fisherman, national region, and caught fish.

Re: Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash

#149

Post by bpizzi » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 5:56 PM UTC

krisroadruck wrote: post #127

bpizzi wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe, just maybe we should try to remember that these folks are PEOPLE and still deserve to be treated with a modicum of decency Purely anecdotal, but this is happening far too often: it's a bad weather day, waiting under the 5m long city tram station's getting protected from the rain, then someone comes and sit right next to me, lightning it's damn cigarette like there was absolutely no problem. This is the kind…

So to clarify... its rainy outside. You don't want to get wet. They don't want to get wet. They are only allowed to smoke outside. I'm not saying its not a dick move mind you, but maybe consider that they too wanted to be comfortable and outside is the only place they are allowed to smoke.

Nope, they can smoke at home, literally 5min before (the are grown adults). Or walk to the other side on the street, 10 meters away, and smoke under a shelter. Or maybe just skip that one cigarette. Or bring an umbrella. I'll stop here.

No, there's no excuses. It's just a case of not having any interest in the other human right next to you.

Re: Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash

#150

Post by chiefalchemist » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 5:57 PM UTC

Yea. Ocean pollution is a problem. But using amount / volume collected is (for me) a misleading metric.

Plaatics (floating everywhere)? Micro-plastics? Chemicals (that can't be collected)? All come to mind.

At the risk of sounding like a cynic / conspiracy theorist, this particular take on the issue feels as if it came out of the covert comms dept of Big Oil.