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

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

#211

Post by sigi45 » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 8:37 AM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #193

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…

I'm probably what you'd call an environmentalist, but the movement is wrought with people who are more concerned with getting high off of self-flagellating moral outrage than fixing problems. Legislative solutions to large polluters and trash generators don't feel like penance in the same way that individual sacrifices do, so a huge chunk of people who are nominally concerned with environmental issues misallocate the…

I'm able to complain about plastic and cigarette butts in parallel.

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

#212

Post by nielsole » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 8:40 AM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #195

wutbrodo wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm probably what you'd call an environmentalist, but the movement is wrought with people who are more concerned with getting high off of self-flagellating moral outrage than fixing problems. Legislative solutions to large polluters and trash generators don't feel like penance in the same way that individual sacrifices do, so a huge chunk of people who are nominally concerned with environmental issues misallocate the…

We probably need (but don’t want) algorithmic control of our actions.

What else is a constitution?

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

#213

Post by thatoneuser » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 9:04 AM 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…

God can’t they engineer some kind of filter system at the ends of those rivers?

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

#214

Post by wutbrodo » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 11:45 AM UTC

sigi45 wrote: post #211

wutbrodo wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm probably what you'd call an environmentalist, but the movement is wrought with people who are more concerned with getting high off of self-flagellating moral outrage than fixing problems. Legislative solutions to large polluters and trash generators don't feel like penance in the same way that individual sacrifices do, so a huge chunk of people who are nominally concerned with environmental issues misallocate the…

I'm able to complain about plastic and cigarette butts in parallel.

Congratulations, you should be very proud of yourself. That's quite an accomplishment.

It's also a bizarrely defensive interjection, given that it has nothing to do with my comment, which was about the set of ostensible environmentalists that focus on self-flagellatory concerns at the expense of actually significant ones, a group that you're saying you're not part of.

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

#215

Post by bobbean » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 11:55 AM 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?

I honestly don't care. I've always known they last for years, I know they end up all over the place, and that it's disgusting, but I don't care. I'll throw it away if I'm close to a trashcan, ashtray, etc, but otherwise I just flick it away and go about my business. I never litter otherwise, I always chase down trash if the wind takes it from my hands, and I pissed when I see someone throw trash on the ground. When I was a kid, I put my chewed gum in my pocket without a wrapper because I didn't want someone to step on it. I like to think I'm considerate to the world and the people I share it with. I never smoke next to someone unless they say it's okay, otherwise I find somewhere else to go, or just don't smoke. There's just something about throwing butts on the ground, I can't get myself to feel bad. I know I'm doing something wrong, and I know I should feel guilty, but I don't. Guess that feeling goes for smoking as well... (I apologise for this intoxicated ramble, a few of the other people who responded to you had irked me)

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

#216

Post by jacobush » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 12:30 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #196

jacobush wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snuff taken the way I know it, under the upper lip, gives a slower hit but a much stronger hit than cigarettes. What I wonder is about the new "vape-like" pens which heats (real) tobacco but doesn't burn it. If that is similar enough to cigarettes to win cigarette smokers over. I would think so, but I'm not a real smoker (only tried a few times) so can't offer my own anecdata.

> What I wonder is about the new "vape-like" pens which heats (real) tobacco but doesn't burn it. I see many people around using it nowadays but I'm sure I wouldn't prefer this over a good vape and I've also heard it's dangerous as it may also be heating the filter together with the tobacco so you actually inhale extra toxines. BTW about vapes - although I believe these are generally healthier than any kind of cigare…

The one I saw (ploom?) was intended for loose tobacco.

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

#217

Post by alistairSH » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 3:36 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #165

deanCommie wrote: post #147

Earlier 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...

Sure, but I was asking specifically about the plastic waste and other trash, which was the original topic. Not general pollutants.

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

#218

Post by 8note » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 4:40 PM UTC

emteycz wrote: post #107

koolba wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When something is taxed as much as cigarettes, it leads to a sense of entitlement for the user and an assumption that the cleanup cost is baked into the taxes.

In my country it actually is. When I tell people to clean up after themselves they say "I just paid the government to do so". One day I will purchase a fleet of Boston Dynamics' SpotMini and the thing will bark loudly and follow the person until they take it and throw it into an ashtray. Public shaming must work, if not, what else could?

your robots can pick up the butts, and deliver them to the smoker's house

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

#219

Post by darkmighty » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

Nomentatus wrote: post #191

slazaro wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being an asshole to assholes... makes you an asshole regardless.

An essential part of civility is pointing out acts of incivility. In contrast, many moderns seem to believe that merely acknowledging the possibility of incivility, is itself the height of incivility. But that's nihilism, not civility.

If you don't curb incivil behavior somehow, you are effectively encouraging it -- that's because often they have something to gain from it. Despite morals and goodness of people, if something incivil unequivocally leads to gain, it will become the norm. A social backlash is a collective way to fight it and align the ethical with the "rational" (in the many situations where the law isn't applicable).

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

#220

Post by eesmith » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 5:48 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #200

eesmith wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, the references you gave do not support your implication that there are benefits to nicotine smoking. "The heaviest smokers" refers to THC smokers, not nicotine, which is the topic at hand. It may be that nicotine smoking does the same, but your reference does not show that that has been demonstrated outside of a Petri dish. The "no benefits" refers to human health, not birds. Even with humans, s…

- They may not prove that there are benefits to smoking tobacco, but they certainly do support the idea. - The claim is that smoking cigarettes has benefits, not that smoking nicotine does. - The idea of calling the lungs a single central hub is, as you acknowledge, that in order to move through the circulatory system it is necessary to pass through the lungs. There is no alternative route which offers the chance to…

Those papers neither support nor reject the idea. At best it is "suggestive."

As I pointed out, with the prisoner/tobacco farmer case you must know the rate of smoking in both populations in order to make any sort of preliminary statement, because 4x vs. 1/4x gives you totally different interpretation, yes? But that information wasn't given. Therefore you cannot draw a conclusion either way from that study.

There may be other reasons for a difference between inhaled vs. ingested nicotine.

It may be that nicotine, when processed by stomach acid, results in a compound which causes the effects seen, and that inhalation does not produce the same results.

Or, since we are talking about parasites in the digestive system, it may be that the nicotine must reach the parasites directly. As you point out, the nicotine which goes through the lungs can enter the bloodstream directly. However, does that nicotine then get released to where the parasites are? The intestines usually work the other way.

I could probably come up with a few more differences if I thought about it. That's why those paper do not support the conjecture.

You wrote "The claim is that smoking cigarettes has benefits, not that smoking nicotine does". However, 1) this post is specifically about tobacco cigarette butts ("Those discarded filters usually contain synthetic fibers and hundreds of chemicals used to treat tobacco"), 2) this thread of the post seems specifically directed to tobacco smokers (woodruffw asked "smokers on HN" why so many smokers "flick their cigarettes into gutters and on streets" - observed events are much more due to tobacco smokers), and 3) you replied to lmilcin, who wrote "Smoking is addiction that is demonstrably bad for your health and has no benefits. ... I grew up in an environment where smoking was encouraged ... when I was teen virtually everybody smoked ...".

It is clear that lmilcin specifically means tobacco smoking. There are very few places/cultures in the "western world" (quoting lmilcim) where 'virtually everybody' smokes marijuana, clove cigarettes, or other herbal cigarettes. A quick check of lmilcin's history finds https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18440363 saying "I am Pole", so lmilcin is almost certainly talking about Poland. Therefore, it's definitely a comment about tobacco cigarette smoking.

If you really believed the thread was about any sort of smoking, then you could have simply pointed out that some herbal cigarettes are not addictive as your counter-example.