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

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

#161

Post by SuoDuanDao » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 6:37 PM UTC

slfnflctd wrote: post #106

cgag wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are tons of benefits which is why people do it

I'm one of the sorta-fortunate (I guess) ones who almost never got any pleasure out of cigarettes. Something about my physical composition doesn't jibe well with them. A handful of times when the air was super humid, I was intoxicated in some way and/or my body was in a certain equilibrium, I experienced the enjoyment, but the rest of the time (~95%) they made me feel worse. I was still stupid enough to keep doing it…

Tobacco had a longstanding religious significance here in North America, that's how I was first introduced to it and I still appreciate it as part of sweat lodges or similar events. It makes more sense to me viewed in that light, a good analogy might be the bread and wine of a catholic mass.

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

#162

Post by SuoDuanDao » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 6:40 PM UTC

codecamper wrote: post #160

Another way to deal with this problem is to simply get rid of filters. Let people that smoke die from cancer earlier & maybe fewer people will smoke. Maybe offer a re-usable filter?

Now I'm imagining those long cigarette holders from the classic movies making a comeback. Funny image.

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

#163

Post by throwawayjava » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 6:49 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #47

fyfy18 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK it can be met with a £80 fine but I've never heard of anyone (other than the sensationalist news articles in the likes of The Sun) ever getting hit with it. I guess it's not worth the red tape for police to hand out fines.

> I guess it's not worth the red tape for police to hand out fines. It's not normally police who issue the penalty notice, but local council staff. This means there's a lot of variation across the country. Some councils outsource this to companies who are a bit too vigorous in giving penalty notices. The aim is to prevent litter, not to raise revenue, so they're supposed to give you a chance to pick up your litter to…

> so they're supposed to give you a chance to pick up your litter to avoid the fine but some don't do that.

That seems like an ineffective mechanism. Just litter and pick it up in the very rare cases where you get called out.

If I were council dictator for a day, I would make the fines stiff and immediate but require that 100%^1 of the revenues are refunded to all residents at the end of each year.

That way there's still a stiff disincentive to littering, but no significant incentive for abusive/dishonest enforcement.

[^1]: (perhaps sans some low and more importantly fixed amount to cover enforcement costs)

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

#164

Post by coldtea » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 6:57 PM UTC

jmull wrote: post #155

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…

The general problem with this kind of criticism is that it can be leveled at any article citing a statistic . No matter what value an article chooses to highlight they could have highlighted a different one. True... but so what? Here I guess the root of your objection is that the article seems to conflate the ocean-sides with the entire ocean. That's fair: the article is really about ocean sides, but in a few places…

>The general problem with this kind of criticism is that it can be leveled at any article citing a statistic.
Only if it cites a badly done statistic or misleads as to the statistic's conclusions, as this article does.

>No matter what value an article chooses to highlight they could have highlighted a different one. True... but so what?*

That's not the accusation here. It's that what they chose to highlight is not the most important pollutant of oceans by any reasonable metric. The purpose of citing a statistic in the first place is to consider things in their respective relevance.

Now, restricting this to the ocean side (which the article editors should have done already in their chosen title), it doesn't seem to be such a problem either (and I'm from a country where most smoke and has tons of beaches).

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

#165

Post by coldtea » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 6:58 PM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #147

alistairSH wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, western countries can outsource all manufacturing there, lower their businesses costs, and then play holier than thou on green matters too...

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

#166

Post by bpizzi » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 7:15 PM UTC

krisroadruck wrote: post #153

bpizzi wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So in your mind, the only way this guy can not be an asshole is if he prioritizes your preferences over his own, but you don't apply this same litmus to yourself. You could walk across the street. You could bring an umbrella. You could decide that second hand smoke from a single cigarette in an open area outside will have effectively zero health consequences for you and maybe to just let it go this one time. Again I…

> but you don't apply this same litmus to yourself. You could walk across the street. You could [...]

Please stop making assumptions.

I'm actually walking across the street, every single time. I let it go, every single time.

At the end of the day, it's me who's going threw the loop "hell, he could have asked if it was ok at least - nevermind I won't make a fuss", while in those heads its "NEED NICOTIN RITNOW - GET NICOTTIIIIIIN".

> I find it odd that you have one set of standards for how others should treat your desires and a completely separate one for the way you handle theirs.

You're wrong. I'm handling their desire very dearly: I walk away and let them smoking how they desire. And then I'm thinking privately (and publicly here) that this is very unfair indeed, because they don't care about my own standard.

I don't think it's worth pursuing this "you don't see the beam in your own eye" kind of argumentation, because in this very specific case my eye is pristine.

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

#167

Post by ip26 » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 7:18 PM UTC

snarfy wrote: post #141

ip26 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Read my post again. WHERE you smoke is a choice. And your behavior & deference while smoking is also a choice.

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

#168

Post by vbuwivbiu » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 7:29 PM UTC

jorgesborges wrote: post #112

vbuwivbiu wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no it's not - they do it because nobody says anything. If you do nothing you're implicitly accepting their behavior

The way you say something is important though. Say something, but don't scold another adult like a child and tell them what to do. Your strategy is way less likely to be successful and may even instigate physical confrontation. Ask them how it's different from littering. It's probably an unconscious habit. Tell them it upsets you personally and that it's harmful to the environment.

I guess one could say something neutral like "litter" or "pollution" i.e. only label the problem without passing judgement

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

#169

Post by FullMtlAlcoholc » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 7:29 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 as well. What else are you going to do with a cigarette butt? Most cars don't have ashtrays anymore. If there is a proper way for me to dispose of a cigarette within a one block radius (some sort of trash receptacle) I will do it. But most people certainly aren't going to keep smelly, tar-filled, stain causing cigarette butts in their pockets, purses, etc. or on their person for any length of time. And I've never seen anyone with

Not all of the butts end up as litter, but proper disposal still means they go to landfills. Recycling options are still extremely limited. The only one I've heard of is a mail-in recycling program. Most Unless manufacturers develop a more recyclable cigarette, the best smokers can do is to make sure their butts are properly disposed of in ashtrays, receptacles, and trashcans.

The biggest issue IMO is the makeup of the butts themselves. Most butts are made of cellulose acetate, a non-biodegradable plastic. I don't know if it's cost effective to make a recyclabe butt. If one could, perhaps a cigarette butt deposit similar to CRV on bottles would change behavior. It would not only alter the consumer behavior but would encourage smokers and nonsmokers alive to comb the streets, beaches, etc. for butts further cleaning out streets.

Otherwise, I don't think it's too much to ask for manufactureres/consumers to pony up the extra cost for a degradable cigarette butt instead of externalizing the cost to all of us for this admittedly disgusting habit.

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

#170

Post by fixvzbdjzis » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 7:42 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?

A mere speculation:

Until 40 years ago cigs didn’t have filters. Just tobacco wrapped in thin paper. Which made them very bio-degradable. Tossing a butt like that is more benign than tossing a peach pit.

They’d been that way for maybe 100 years while the smoking culture formed.

Either way, I think cigarette butts stick out as litter because of our modern aversion to them and smokers. They’re pretty sterile, do biodegrade and are small.

Unlike the liquor bottles that seem to litter any college town.