What about half empty juice bottles or half eaten tacos that you leave on the street in hopes that some homeless person just might consider that a prize find? Is that litter?
Jeez, what I find never failing about these Boards, much as I love 'em, are the self-righteous spoilers who come in immediately somebody says something strong and finger wag and tsk tsk, and do their “well what if there was a child in that car?” crap.
It’s my opinion that in most cases these people don’t make these statements out of a strong concern for natural justice, but out of a delight in contradicting someone or puncturing their self-esteem.
I am certain that I would never myself throw a lit cigarette into someone else’s car. But I was smiling as I read gato’s rant, and happy to see the poetic justice of it. You endanger our environment (here in Australia it is a SERIOUS danger in the dry weather ) and in return I endanger your crotch.
But post after post about “what you should have done” and “what I’d do to you if you dared do that to me” is pointless.
I do hate smokers as a group. I have too many friends who smoke to be unrealistic about it; it’s a nasty fact of life that large corporations have used skillful advertising campaigns to trap friends of mine into a drug dependence that’s harder to break off than heroin. So I don’t hate smokers when I keep that in mind.
But when the scrawny blonde at the next table lights up her cigarette as my food arrives and holds her hand back, away from her friends and nudging my shoulder and almost burning my ear instead, I get mad. When, passing the office building that doesn’t permit smoking inside, I have to run a gamut of choking smoke from the idle office workers crowding the pavement, I get mad. And when you throw a lit butt out of your car window onto the street in front of me, I’d be damn tempted to throw it back in.
And if it looked as if I would be a match for you physically (ie you’re eighty years old and in poor health) I might just do that.
Redboss
Oh, so you’re in favor of burning children with cigarette butts, then, are you? Sick.
I’ll bet you kick kittens, too, you heartless bastard. Don’t bother denying it.
Why can’t one espouse justice AND enjoy a good flamewar? Did I miss a meeting?
Sadistic sumbitch, reveling in others’ pain. A kitten-kicker to the very core, you are.
Not if I hide your dentures.
So why bother reading it? Seriously.
But we wuuuuv you.
Yer damn right. Those big, nasty, evil corporations! We didn’t stand a CHANCE. It sure feels good to be absolved of any responsibility for my actions! Thanks, Padre! Now let’s go get those awful, awful, NAUGHTY corporations…
Oh, wait, we can’t. The instant you declared a concern for justice and delight in contradicting someone to be mutually exclusive, all the lawyers in the world evaporated.
Well, fuckit. C’mon, I’ll buy you a beer instead.
Dammit, Redboss. There you go again, posting things that are making me fall in love with you. My husband is already jealous of the time I spend here on the boards. What’s he gonna think if I have to tell him that I have fallen in love with an Australian homosexual??
Anyhow, I don’t hate smokers–in fact most of the people that I know who do smoke are very considerate about it. But I do think that littering should be considered a more serious crime, and I think that anybody who is littering with items that are on fire should receive a very serious penalty.
Hmm, maybe when this whole WTC thing is past us, I’ll start a thread about whether we should increase enforcement of certain “minor” crimes.
Everyone listen up — BE QUIET!
A large portion of other people’s comments so far in this thread have been pointless, but now Redboss has something to say!
::listens with unbreakable concentration::
:rolleyes:
Redboss, you’re my favourite Australian homosexual! Including Russell Crowe! (What? What?)
Yes. That’s litter.
But you already knew that, didn’t you? Just like you already knew cigarette butts are litter.
A BIG thumbs up to the OP. The fact that so many smokers choose to trample over other people like they do does not suprise me. People that smoke are addicts, a sign of lack of character and therefore consideration.
Isn’t it wonderful that smokers dump their ashes and butts onto the road so they don’t have to suffer from their own dirty filthy nasty habit? I also love going to a restaurant and sitting next to a smokestack who takes a puff out of their cancer stick then holds it away from their face and towards mine, so I get to inhale their pollution while they breathe easy. Or how I have to wait longer for a non-smoking table. In other words, I must suffer because I don’t want lung cancer.
I really, REALLY get annoyed at drivers who flick their garbage while driving. While I doubt it’s going to do any damage to my car, the principle of someone flicking ashes onto my car really gets my goat. And yes, cigarette butts are litter. It would be nice to see cops pull over these people and fine them.
I also loved coming home from work 2 weeks ago and having to clean up the pile of ashes and cigarette butts all over my sidewalk that some asshole smoker decided to turn into his personal carbage can.
I can’t say all smokers are assholes, but I’d say the majority of them are. If I ran a company I would never hire a smoker.
So I take it you don’t accept the disease model of addiction, as posited by the medical community?
(not that I’m defending littering, you understand).
No I don’t. Addiction is a choice, not a diesase.
Do you reject germ theory and the biochemical basis for psychiatric illness also?
Qadgop, MD
I did a Google search and found this:
http://www.cigarettelitter.org/index.asp?PageName=Facts
“What happens after that butt gets casually flicked onto the street, nature trail, or beach? Typically wind and rain carry the cigarette into the water supply, where the toxic chemicals the cigarette filter was designed to trap leak out into aquatic ecosystems, threatening the quality of the water and many aquatic lifeforms. Cigarette butts may seem small, but with an estimated 4.5 trillion butts littered every year, the toxic chemicals add up!”
Great, so the butts are not only messing up the ground, they are polluting the water systems, too. (Read “butts” however you wish.)
I worked as a sweeper at an amusement park many, many years ago. I gathered bits of popcorn, leaves, and other various things all day, every day. By far the majority of items was cigarette butts. I always thought that would be a great punishment for those who littered-- to have my summer job.
I think the only way to get it to stop, though, is to
make it just as easy to the smoker to not throw it on
the ground as it is to throw it on the ground.
Any ideas?
Edible cigarette butts.
And I only thought of that because my fantasy revenge for people who fling lit butts willy-nilly is to make them eat them, still lit.
[sub]“What are you screaming about? The box says they’re ‘Kool’…”[/sub]
Available in plain, peanut, & corn.
“Excuse me, I just ran out of smokes. Could I bum one of yours?”
“Certainly, if you’ll eat your butt.”
Yeah, dammit, it’s juvenile. I’ve been listening to Bob & Tom CDs all morning, cut me some slack…
i better not even tell ya’ all what i did to an inconsiderate smoker in a resturant once…
vinnie and the australian guy: you dudes rock!
mouthbreather: never would have caught me, and even if you did manage, i would welcome the challenge! (full face helmets and body armour are good for fightin’ in!)
IMHO, many of the arguments against butt-flicking would carry much more weight if they didn’t include the “I hate smokers in general” rant.
It reminds me of the “Hillary’s behavior at the speech was heartless, and did I mention that I’ve always hated Hillary?” threads.
I am a smoker.
I don’t flick my butts out the window, nor do many of my smoking friends.
I don’t know the smoking status of Opal.
I don’t agree with those who flick their butts out the window.
I don’t blow my smoke in anyone’s face.
I go out of my way to accomodate non-smokers, i.e. I won’t smoke in your house or car, even if you say it’s okay to do so.
If I’m out in front of my building puffing on a cigarette and you walk out the front door (about 40 feet from where I stand) and start that “I want you to think that your smoke is bothering me” cough, I’ll just laugh at you. The hundreds of cars that are driving by 5 feet in front of you are much worse for your health.
If you really think you must toss the flicked cigarette back into the culprit’s car, I agree with the previous poster who said to field strip it first. Assault isn’t a good counter to littering.
Can we get a few ashtrays on the streets? Especially those which are in “pedestrian” areas? Some of us would really prefer not to litter the streets, but I can’t convince all of my friends to field strip, and my fiancee seems to burn her hands every time she attempts it.
What’s this “we”? If the smokers are the ones who need them, the smokers can bloody well pay for them.
Yeah, and let the handicapped pay for their own ramps, dammit!
I agree. In my OP I tried to make it clear that I don’t
care if people smoke, and I was sincere about that.
Smokers hate me - I used to be one of the poseurs who only
smoked when I drank, so I’m really not in a position to
judge on that count.
Not a bad idea. Still, the car smokers could only reach
it if it were attached to the left turn sign, and if they
were the first car in the left-hand turn bay.
But it’s a good idea for pedestrians to have more ashtray
access. Oh, and the people who are presently emptying their
whole ashtray in front of the 7-11 - they might not if there
was an ashtray right close to where they parked.
I hope people forgive us for making a pit thread constructive.