Don’t be an ass and slander libertarians. Any genuine libertarian would acknowledge - and promote the idea - that littering is wrong because it’s not one’s own property. If you litter on public property, it’s littering on everyone else’s property, which is not okay. rachelellogram is clearly off his/her own rocker.
Wrong-o!
I used to smoke.
Every rare once in awhile I’d accidentally reverse the damn things by accident and light the filter ends.
They are NOT, absolutely positively NOT, made of cotton. They’re made of some horrid synthetic nylonesque fibers that, when exposed to flames, melt and fuse into a disgusting plasticky congealed mass that smells like burning plastic.
Oh, and for the record in case anyone missed the announcement, a smoker who smokes filtered cigarettes is probably introducing more carcinogens via the heated synthetic filters than they are removing by drawing the tobacco tars through that same filter.
Anyway, I’m familiar with cotton. Cotton burns, it doesn’t melt. And plastic-synthetic fibers from cigarette filters don’t biodegrade. Or not any faster than plastic soda bottles at any rate.
EDIT: and of course that’s already been pointed out a few times.
If you’re burning the filter, you’re doing it wrong. 
Damn it, you’re not allowed to spoil all my fun by figuring this out on your own.
How do you justify the fact that all this litter ended up on the ground unless there were many people who think putting it there is just fine? I don’t put mine on the ground, but I don’t think it’s a serious problem. On the rank of “things Rachel cares about,” people disposing of cigarette butts on the road hovers near the very bottom (next to whether or not I care whether people pick their noses, or the favorite colors of others).
The idea that someone is trolling for holding a viewpoint different from your own is egocentric. The fact is that there exist people who agree with me–how else would the litter end up there in the first place if this weren’t true? I’m used to being in an unpopular vocal minority, though.
Again, I believe that the freedom to put cigarette filters on the ground supersedes your or my aesthetic or environmental preferences. I’m not going to change my mind, and neither is anyone else apparently. But I thought it’d be worth making a few posts to break up the self-congratulatory circlejerk that occurs when everyone agrees with everyone else in threads like these.
I don’t know why I’m even bothering to respond to such an obvious troll, but since when does “a bunch of people do it” mean “it’s okay”?
Yeah, I hear that’s hard to do when you don’t have one.
Lots of different types of freedoms are curtailed when they start imposing costs on other people. I’m assuming you will agree that litter imposes costs on people who don’t litter?
People don’t litter because they think it’s their right, or ‘freedom’, they do it because they’re lazy or don’t care either way.
I get the feeling you haven’t put a lot of thought into this stance.
How could she, what with no mind and all?
Try living in Arizona sometime. Drive down I-10 and look at all the black areas of “vegetation” that have been burned by cigarette-started brush fires.
There are worse definitions of democracy than that…
HOLY FUCK you are an idiot. First you didn’t know that “littering” meant throwing trash, ANY trash on the ground. Then you displayed ignorance of your own laws, so I had to look them up and then patiently explain them to you before you understood them.
Now I’m gonna have to explain to you what democracy means? Hint, fucktard: it’s not what just said it was.
Goddamn you are stupid. You’re not even smart enough to get out of your own fucking way.
How do you manage to find your mouth with the food, that you’ve lived this long?
I didn’t say there weren’t better definitions of democracy…
My point, if it really needs explaining, is that if a large enough group of people do something, that thing is acceptable in their society. I’m aware that’s a simplistic view, but I think it has some truth.
Some people think it’s just fine to steal and murder… that doesn’t make it right or legal.
I’m shocked!
Or, well, anywhere. Pretty much any area I can think of has dry times when a lit cigarette butt will cause massive damage.
ETA: That includes my front lawn. Calgary is a semi-arid area - I don’t water the bejeebus out of my lawn, and it gets very dry by the end of summer. I have nightmares of my house burning down because of some asshole’s cigarette butt flipped to the left onto my lawn instead of the right, into the gutter (where it is still littering, but at least it won’t burn my house down).
See: “Tragedy of the Commons”.
I’d like to find all the cig butts I can find and deliver them in huge bundles to Philip Morris HQ.
“These are yours, but don’t worry, they’re totally safe.”
Is it the fault of Anheuser Busch if someone litters their beer cans? Macdonalds’ for someone littering the wrapper for a quarter pounder w/cheese?
Found this picture timely:
http://oddlyspecific.failblog.org/page/2/ 3rd picture down.
And with respect to the beer cans- too much litter is exactly why the beer and soda companies had to adopt new cans with stay on tabs.