I’ve had it with smokers!

[j]

Perhaps this would be better served under “Pet Peeves” post, but I believe its worthy of its own special thread. I don’t know how else to say it other than, I’m disgusted by what I see every morning when I pull up to the red light at my off ramp. A casual glance out the driver’s side window will reveal literally thousands of cigarette butts (amongst other trash), as far as the eye can see. I’m disgusted, and ashamed that I live amongst these pigs.

If you’re a smoker, and you care to admit that you also have thrown your butts out the window, would you like to offer an explanation as to why you do this???? Is your ashtray overflowing because you are too lazy to empty it? (I say this because I’ve seen it). Did you lose your death grip on this butt and it just accidentally flew out the window? I mean...is there any reasonable explanation for why you flick it out without any regard for the disgusting mess you are contributing to? When the ashtray is full, do you head for the nearest Wal-Mart parking lot, so you can dump it?

I’m baffled. Please clear this up for me. Before you jump all over me, and tell me I’m generalizing, please explain to me just how millions of cigarettes end up all over the roadside if the vast majority of smokers aren’t doing it?

Who exactly do you figure is going to clean up your mess?

I'm not even going to get into the whole second hand smoke thing, that's another topic. Lets just deal with the filth they leave behind.

[Miss Mary]

j - my daughter Laura and I volunteered last April picking up trash in our community. When we were done we were treated to lunch. Organizers asked the kids if they were glad they helped out. Of course every child said yes, as they were munching on subs, brownies and Pepsi's! But Laura piped up - and I am never going to smoke! We picked up so many cigarette butts!

She wanted to get the word out to smokers - "your discarded c. butts do not decompose. They sit there for weeks, months, years until someone volunteers to pick up YOUR trash."

Worse yet, c. butts are harmful to wildlife! That's what worries me, animal lover that I am. We picked up all sorts of trash that morning, bottles/cans, fast food wrappers, a few condoms, but c. butts were the main thing we picked up - hundreds of them, in our small assigned area. Mostly at traffic lights and stop signs. Drivers must just pull up, open their car door and dump their ash trays right there. And move on. Grrrrrrr......that's littering! Plain and simple.

So I'm with ya! Agree completely.

Mary

[HurricaneGirl]

Last weekend my husband and I were at the Jacksonville Zoo and he took a picture of a bird with a cigarette butt in it's mouth. Some idiot threw a butt into where they kept these birds. People aren't even allowed to smoke in there.

[Miss Mary]

You know there's a part of me that just wants to quietly walk to smokers like that and pick up their discarded butt on the ground. Just ever so politely hand it back to them and say - you dropped this.

But in today's world, I'd probably have a gun pulled on me or worse.

So I keep my mouth shut.

Mary

[azsnowman]

I smoke and I've NEVER thrown a butt out the window..you know what REALLY PIS*ES ME off? As you know, we do commercial landscape maintenance, one of our big accounts, the Super Wal Mart, people are SO FRIGGIN' LAZY, they will, instead of dumping their ashtrays in a trash can, which takes WALKING to the front of the store, they will DUMP them in the LANDSCAPE NOW.....here's what I've DONE, NO LIE, HONEST to goodness, I witnessed this one OLD fart dump his ashtray in a parking island, exit the pickup, walk in the store, WELL, while this old fart was inside, I raked them up and DUMPED them in the BACK of his pick up, some one witnessed me doing this, came up to me (I thought "oh sh**") and shoke my hand!

Dennis

[Miss Mary]

Dennis! Something tells me j is applauding you right now!!!

Mary

[Yankeegirl]

I smoke but I rarey throw the butt out the window.. I think a few times the butt has accidently flown outta my fingers, from the wind, but I throw them in my ashtray, thats what its for, I think that people throw it out the window because they smell up the car? When I get home from going somwhere, I empty out my ashtray, in my garbage can. I dont smoke in my house, and I dont smoke in the car when my kids are in the car. As far a being wildlife friendly, when I buy a 6 pack of something, I ALWAYS cut the rings of plastic for the safety of the birds I have seen that get stuck in it... I feel so guilty of throwing away the plastic without cutting it! and for smoking, I am really trying to quit, I have slowed down my intake over the past few months... I am trying, really I am !!

[j]

Good man Dennis..I can just picture you doing that...

[Pburgh]

Well I also smoke. I'm not guilty of putting my butts anywhere but in the trash. I can't stand litter of any kind. (Well, that's not true, I can't do without cat litter!!) Even when I am in my own yard, my butts are carried to the trash. I agree with you J. Good for you Dennis!!!!!!!!!!

[CajunMama]

Another smoker here and an avid ashtray user! At home I'm an outside smoker (work too) and I have a little tin pail I put my butts in. My husband will toss his out in the street. I get soooooo mad at him for that.

The local government here is trying to pass a law that will force smokers to smoke 25 feet away from any public and PRIVATE building. I don't smoke at stores and restaurants but I am so angry that the local government wants to keep smokers away from PRIVATE businesses. I think that's a little too much of invasion of privacy. Next they'll tell me I can't smoke on my own property.

[PurdueWx80]

j -

This is one of my biggest pet peeves too. I just can't understand how people don't appreciate how "pristine" nature, and even manmade landscapes can be without trash all over them. I used to push carts at the local Super Target, and would find butts all over the place, sometimes people would dump out their entire ashtray, garbage, butts and all into the parking lot. What really ticks me off is when I see a fire was started by someone carelessly throwing out their cigs.

People shouldn't throw them out, but the companies that make them need to work on producing the most biodegradable product possible.

[chadtm80]

Perhaps this would be better served under “Pet Peeves” post, but I believe its worthy of its own special thread. I don’t know how else to say it other than, I’m disgusted by what I see every morning when I pull up to the red light at my off ramp. A casual glance out the driver’s side window will reveal literally thousands of cigarette butts (amongst other trash), as far as the eye can see. I’m disgusted, and ashamed that I live amongst these pigs.

If you’re a smoker, and you care to admit that you also have thrown your butts out the window, would you like to offer an explanation as to why you do this???? Is your ashtray overflowing because you are too lazy to empty it? (I say this because I’ve seen it). Did you lose your death grip on this butt and it just accidentally flew out the window? I mean...is there any reasonable explanation for why you flick it out without any regard for the disgusting mess you are contributing to? When the ashtray is full, do you head for the nearest Wal-Mart parking lot, so you can dump it?

I’m baffled. Please clear this up for me. Before you jump all over me, and tell me I’m generalizing, please explain to me just how millions of cigarettes end up all over the roadside if the vast majority of smokers aren’t doing it?

Who exactly do you figure is going to clean up your mess?

I'm not even going to get into the whole second hand smoke thing, that's another topic. Lets just deal with the filth they leave behind.

Liberal Tree Hugger.. lol j/k

I agree with you.. Lazy arse fools.. What bothers me even more though is when you see Mom carrying the baby in her arms with a cig hanging out of her mouth and the smoke just pouring in the babys face

[MGC]

I don't smoke and I'm not going to pick on smokers. Sure I see cig butts all over the place down here but I also see all kinds of trash all over the place. Too bad some people think they can just trash up the place for all of us. But to say smokers a major source of trash is not accurate. Lots of nonsmokers trash up the place too.......MGC

[GalvestonDuck]

I agree with you.. Lazy arse fools.. What bothers me even more though is when you see Mom carrying the baby in her arms with a cig hanging out of her mouth and the smoke just pouring in the babys face

Or this....

[PurdueWx80]

Or this....

That can't possibly be real....looks like the something from The Onion, but somehow I bet it isn't. Sad.

[azsnowman]

Good man Dennis..I can just picture you doing that...

j, Karan......I was Soooooooooo MAD, I figured, "To HADES with HIM!" And the thing that REALLY pis*ed me off, the old fart SAW ME, I was 1 island away raking when he did this, I KNOW he saw me, I KNOW he did. I felt SO good when I did this...wonder what he thought when he came out with his wife and put his stuff in the back of his pick up

I see this old toot around town quite a bit, God I'd love to see him do this again

Dennis

[furluvcats]

j...Here in California, some beaches are non smoking beaches now due to cig butts being found discarded on the beach. While this is an eyesore, so are hot dog wrappers, soda cans,discarded lawn chairs and kiddie beach toys. If you're going to rule out smoking on a beach, bc you don't like the trash left behind, then why not rule out eating, and drinking on the beach? Or how about not allowing beach chairs and kids beach toys on the beach?

It's not smokers as a rule, leaving their trash behind, as its not the general public of snack eaters, and chair sitters as a rule, but a few inconsiderate people representing each group, all contributing to a messy dirty beach, roadside, flower bed, etc.

So, my thinking is not to attack smokers in general...look at it it in perspective, and write your editorial to all "litter bugs"....Smokers and non smokers alike are contributing, just not all in the form of butts....

[Aslkahuna]

Well, in 1999 we lost an archeological dig site on Fort Huachuca to a wildfire caused when a smoker in a van tossed a cigarette out the window which landed in parched grass on a windy day. Other's saw him but unfortunately they were too far to catch his plate number. I still have video of people on the roofs of their houses with water hoses as the fire threatened an upscale subdivison. The dig site was one that had established human presence in the area around the Huachucas over 11000 years ago and part of it was to be opened to the Public. The Garrison Commander was incensed and said that if the person responsible for the fire was ever caught he wold be facing a host of Federal Charges. Incidentally, don't EVER want to have an AZ DPS Officer see you flip a butt out the window during fire season.

Steve

[GalvestonDuck]

Or this....

That can't possibly be real....looks like the something from The Onion, but somehow I bet it isn't. Sad.

'Tis real.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/signs/pregnant.asp

[j]

j...Here in California, some beaches are non smoking beaches now due to cig butts being found discarded on the beach. While this is an eyesore, so are hot dog wrappers, soda cans,discarded lawn chairs and kiddie beach toys. If you're going to rule out smoking on a beach, bc you don't like the trash left behind, then why not rule out eating, and drinking on the beach? Or how about not allowing beach chairs and kids beach toys on the beach?

It's not smokers as a rule, leaving their trash behind, as its not the general public of snack eaters, and chair sitters as a rule, but a few inconsiderate people representing each group, all contributing to a messy dirty beach, roadside, flower bed, etc.

So, my thinking is not to attack smokers in general...look at it it in perspective, and write your editorial to all "litter bugs"....Smokers and non smokers alike are contributing, just not all in the form of butts....

Shhhhhhhhh...my post was (as I clearly stated), prompted by what I see every morning at the off ramp. Gazillions of cigarette butts. Can it possibly be a mere handful of smokers who over the years have thrown their butts out here? I don't think so, which is why I chose to generalize a group. Now several members let it be known that they were not like those nasty people littering the side of the road, Wal-Mart parking lots, and anywhere that excites them. I would expect nothing less of a Storm2K member!!!!