Why don't countries regulate the butts to ensure they are more readily biodegradable?
Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash
201–210 of 236 posts
Re: Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are acting as an apologist for every scent that you personally don't mind. You are the one who digressed away from pollution to odor. Let go of your hate, please. And please stop conflating odor with pollution, it is not becoming of you.
> You are acting as an apologist for every scent that you personally don't mind. On the contrary, I defended the moral character of people who wear perfume, not the stench of perfume, since they do not categorically possess the same moral defect as smokers. (And I didn't defend in any way people who smell like campfires. People who go camping should bath before presenting themselves in public, they have absolutely no…
> weather the hate they rightfully get from the rest of us.
Wow. You're a bit of a trite asshat, huh?
I don't smoke (cigarettes at least...) but if you're capable of hating someone because they smell vaguely of smoke... I dislike you a lot.
That no compromise "one of us or one of them" attitude is basically lowest common denominator thinking. Maybe try toning it down some.
- Some random person
Re: Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash
#203Only 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?
Because we are trying to die, and simply do not give a fuck.
Feed that into your facebook suicide watch/dark tetrad NLP algorithm, and use it as a political impetus for a smoking prohibition bill, and behavior modification after school program. Save the world from it’s final free thought.
#YOLO
Re: Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash
#204Only 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 here and guilty of throwing many butts on the ground even though I find any other form of litter unthinkable. When I was much younger I believed that cigarette butts biodegraded in a couple years. No big deal, right? I distinctly remember reading this on a sign at a campsite when I was about 18. Turns out, that's an ideal scenario and butts can take up to 10 years to break down naturally, and even then…
Another former-ish smoker here. I smoked a couple packs over the holidays. Back when I was a daily smoker, there were smoking areas, that had bins for butts. I’ve since discovered that my local government had decided that people shouldn’t be smoking in public, or in outdoor areas of restaurants and bars. The result being people exclusively smoking in irregular places that have no bins, where they just end up flicking their butts on the ground.
It reminds me of another recent act of my local government when they banned single use plastic bags. The supermarkets started selling ‘reusable’ plastic bags for about 25c each. Resulting in many people buying a new set of ‘reusable’ plastic bags each time they shop, and just throwing the heavier plastic bags away when they get home.
Re: Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash
#205Only 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?
Not a smoker, but I was personally surprised when other people told me they'd have no compunction against discarding an apple core or other similar biodegradable trash on the ground.
Given that some people believe cigarettes are also biodegradable, that attitude may explain it.
As a society, we've also moved away from having appropriate storage for discarded cigarette trash - ash trays are no longer standard in anything and were already becoming a curiosity more than a decade ago. I assume cigarettes in a normal trash bin present a fire hazard and can't be disposed of there.
Re: Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash
#206The 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 paper you cite is just about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Re: Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
Germany is definitely not western world then. 50% of adults can't say no to a cigarette.
Even in Germany, only 24.5% of adults smoke (old data from 2013, nowadays probably a lot less).
"Microcensus"... Other sources state >50% smokers (not just heavy ones)
Re: Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
Severly poor communities without any wastewater treatment letting effluent into the river they live next to is the problem. It is the prime recipe for Cholera.
So EU/US usually makes cleaner wastewater, but uses a lot more energy (so pollutes by CO2).
Manufacturing's externalities outsourcing is of course something that should be handled by import tariffs and supply chain verification.
Re: Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
Such as?
A social network with other smokers in proximity. Regular breaks from work that they don't forget to make. Regular time outside of a sealed office space.. There are definite short term advantages to smokers. There (_)used to be similar short term advantages for those who drank during work hours when it was socially acceptable. (_ Used to might be wrong.. Startups with designated drinking times that seem to be mandato…
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I'm lucky that at my current job none of us smoke and still regularly take quick walks outside of the office. I guess it helps that every room has a door that goes directly outside.