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Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash
- ghouse 8y agoMy own cognitive bias about smokers littering is why I vote in favor of any cigarette tax. Yes, I realize that not all smokers think the street or sidewalk is an appropriate place for their used cigarette. But the people I see smoking do this, so I (inaccurately) assume they all do (without consequence).
- sieabahlpark 8y agoYou wouldn't be wrong. My favorite are the smokers who put out their cigarette on a wooden fence and throw it into the desert brush. Hasn't caught fire yet somehow
- icebraining 8y agoNot that surprising. Lumber doesn't catch fire that easily (hence fire starters).
- v_lisivka 8y agoI saw it by my own eyes when I was child. Old wooden fence started to burn after cigarette butt landed at it in hot summer. Wood was dry and hot in direct light. I saw little smoke first then smoke disappeared, then, after couple of minutes, clean fire.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoYou saw the combustion equivalent of being bit by a shark and struck by lightening at the same time. Except in exceptional circumstances where the wood is highly flammable (like very dry and probably a little bit rotted wood that's at 150F+ from sitting in the sun), something like a cigarette butt or a lit match is not enough to catch lumber on fire without some other easier to ignite material in between as a stepping stone.
- tgb 8y agoYou seem to be quite mistaken: https://www.fire.nsw.gov.au/page.php?id=327 https://www.fire.nsw.gov.au/page.php?id=327
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoYour link deals with cigarette butts igniting brush on the roadside and hay in a lab simulating roadside conditions, not lumber. Nobody here is claiming that cigarette butts can't light dry brush on fire. I am claiming that in less than "freak accident" or laboratory conditions it is basically impossible to ignite lumber with a cigarette butt unless there is something (like dry brush) in between. Edit: Based on the down votes I'm illiterate, I'm wrong or this is Reddit.
- thatcat 8y agoCurrent cigarettes have additives in the paper so that they go out easily themselves.
- rhacker 8y agoIn the summer time in various forest towns in California, some of which have had major fires recently... I see probably 20 grass fires a year. All of them start next to the road. I actually think the perpetrators are not that we have 1000 smokers, there are probably just a few REALLY bad people that don't care. They are also the kind of people that if you started to put up signs about smoking and fires, they would start throwing lit matches out the window.
- labster 8y agoNot that I have any sympathy for smokers, but there are a lot of anthropogenic sources of ignition. Cars dragging metal, and hot catalytic converters are a couple. Electric lines that frequently run along roads are another. And campfires and ordinary cooking fires can spark a wildfire; homeless people tend to live near roads and overpasses. The fact that we don't have more arsonists in California is one thing that gives me faith in humanity.
- rrauenza 8y agoThe huge California Carr fire was caused by a flat tire ... https://www.businessinsider.com/california-fire-caused-by-flat-tire-officials-say-2018-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/california-fire-caused-by-fl... > [...] The fire was first ignited on July 23, after a trailer's tire blew out and the rim made contact with the pavement, [...]
- rrauenza 8y agoIt seems no one uses their car ashtray anymore, either -- probably because it makes the car stink. So they hold the cig outside their window, tap the ashes into the street, and often flick the butt into the road. I sometimes wonder how many lit cigs get dropped by accident into the road.
- ams6110 8y agoWhat cars still have ashtrays? I haven't seen one since 1990s models. I have several cars 2002 - 2004 and none of them have an ashtray, or a lighter.
- superpie 8y agoSome car manufacturers sell ash trays as "add-on" items at the dealer since that space can be used more practically for the non-smoking majority.
- mikestew 8y ago2018 Mercedes Sprinter, for one. There's a cup holder insert that looks pretty much like an ashtray. 2005 Scion xB has a change holder that's shaped oddly like a thing one could flick ashes into. Came with the cigarette lighter, too. 2011 Nissan Leaf, however, assumes that if you're saving polar bears, you're not a smoker. There is a 12VDC outlet buried in there, but even if you bought a lighter to fit, I wouldn't try to get to it while driving. As far as I recall, there's no place to use as an ash tray.
- ken 8y agoVW did until around 2010, I think, and then they replaced it with an optional cupholder insert. The 2000's models hid it behind a plain black trap door, so you'd never see it if you didn't go poking around for it.
- rrauenza 8y agoWow! You're right -- and they don't come with lighters anymore either, at least not standard ... I guess cigarettes are also to blame for our lousy 12v outlet design?
- berberous 8y agoEvery smoker I have ever known throws their used butts in the street, so I don't think it's inaccurate.
- merpnderp 8y agoWe have a smokers pole outside for butts. It is surrounded by butts and is apparently only emptied when it catches fire and enters "self cleaning mode" which I'm sure creates a nice miasma of VOC from the burning plastics. I'm very wary of voting for any sort of social nannying laws that try to keep people from making bad choices, but I make a strong exception for smokers, who seem to be nearly unanimous in treating the world like they treat their lungs.
- simonebrunozzi 8y agoSimple solution, but thought to implement: do to cigarette butts what it has been done for empty glass bottles: each one has a deposit cost of, say, $0.20, and when you return them you get the money back. Cigarette packs should be modified to allow for easy storage of used butts, so you can return it to the cigarette seller when you buy a new pack.
- wbrasky 8y agoThat would make sense if you could meaningfully recycle filters, like you can glass bottles. This would end up being a false economy subsidy more than likely. No thanks.
- collyw 8y agoIt will still go some way toward them ending up in the sea.
- gascan 8y agoWhy do you need to recycle them? A deposit requires no subsidy- the purchaser pays an extra $0.20 per cig, and recoups that when they return the butts. The accomplished function is the recovery of the butts. Caveat, all the old butts pre-deposit could probably still get returned for $0.20, which would require some money from somewhere.
- jstanley 8y agoAnd now the shop has a shed load of cigarette butts that they need to get rid of at their own expense, and no extra money to show for it.
- gascan 8y agoRecovery rate of deposit programs is generally not 100%, which leaves the shop with some surplus deposit funds that can be applied towards managing the butts.
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- SiempreViernes 8y agoOn the one hand, cigarettes give you a slow painful death and they are still not universally banned, so there is not much prior reason for hope. On the other, banning filters seems like a simple enough solution to such a concrete and immediate problem as littering that it might be reasonable to believe an enforce can be implemented despite the track record.
- Rotdhizon 8y agoI read somewhere the other week that fishing gear was the biggest source of ocean trash. Which is it?
- giarc 8y agoLikely due to volume vs pieces. By volume, I believe fishing nets are the largest polluter, but likely if you counted the pieces, cigarette butts might be higher.
- butt_inski 8y agoSo, which is worse? I think fishing nets by light years, since they are actively designed to harm marine life, and succeed at exactly that. But people are looking for a means to act, and if they can participate in reduction, in any way, it's good to know that they have a target they can take aim at. Only commercial fishing is going to ultimately impact fishing nets, and likely only when forced by punitive measures.
- patwolf 8y agoThat does seem like a faulty metric to identify the worst pollution problems. By pure count there are probably more microbeads than cigarettes in the ocean. So this article is basically saying that of the countable pieces of pollution in the ocean, there are more pieces of cigarette butts than anything else. I have a hard time trusting reputable news sites when they have this type of sensational reporting.
- ThomasBHickey 8y agoThe article is really about trash on beaches (and pieces vs volume).
- artie_effim 8y agoCame here to say this. Honestly, the shows over folks. We are truly in the Anthropocene moving to a Blade Runner trash world. We've caught up with end-of-days sci-fi.
- tzs 8y ago
- admax88q 8y agoHow do all these things end up in the ocean in the first place? Plastic straws or cigarette butts, seems like we have a garbage collection problem. Rather than banning the item of the day that we find in the ocean, can we fix garbage collection so that none of or crap ends up there?
- basic1 8y agoHow is something made of plant matter and paper not biodegradable anyway?
- gascan 8y agoThey have plastic inside them.
- tunap 8y agoThey are biodegradeable, and do so in under 2 years. It is still littering and lame, however. I stopped asking people at yhe lake, but most ask me what I'm doing after the 1st couple p/u's & I explain I don't come out to look at trash, enough of it in the city. I then offer to share my cup/bottle/pocket to store theirs w/ mine. Source: Poster on the wall in the Yellowstone NP gift shop.
- gumby 8y agoThe cigarette is made of (chemically treated) plant matter and paper, but the filter is not. Its main purpose is to turn brown when heated so the smoker thinks the filter has trapped something bad for them. A "marketing function" as the article says.
- J_cst 8y agoIf cigarette smoke is blown through a paper tissue it will get stained (dark brown spot)[0]. I don't think paper tissue is treated in order to become brown with cigarette smoke. Perhaps it absorbs something? On the other side, obviously, the cigarette filter (butt) does not seem effective in protecting the lungs from cancer or other smoking generated doseases. From that point of view it has only a "marketing" function. [0]source: personal experience
- Eric_WVGG 8y agoLove this project to train crows to pick cigarette butts. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15486368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15486368 I had hoped that the vaping trend would mean fewer cigarette butts, but now I'm seeing plastic Juul capsules littered here and there. So much for ecological millennials…
- soared 8y agoJuul is much more a gen z thing than millenial
- learnstats2 8y agoI hate that project. It's completely gross to poison crows by training them to do something that we could train humans to do - with the exact same incentive system.
- king_phil 8y agoIs there any evidence that the crows are poisoned? Can you provide the source?
- joshontheweb 8y agoI recall reading an article recently about city birds using butts in their nests to ward off insects.
- learnstats2 8y agoWhy would you demand evidence for this?
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoHow is organic plant material in the ocean, anything but an esthetic problem?
- gruez 8y ago>The cellulose acetate fibers used as the predominant filter material do not readily biodegrade because of the acetyl groups on the cellulose backbone which in itself can quickly be degraded by various microorganisms employing cellulases.[23] A normal life span of a discarded filter is thought to be up to 15 years.[24]
- merpnderp 8y agoThis is a useful question to prompt an important answer and shouldn't have been down voted. Yes the parent should have read the article, but because the parent asked the question everyone else who's just here for the comments will see why cigarette butts aren't just harmless plant material.
- kevcampb 8y agoExcept it isn't, it's fishing nets https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22939-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22939-w
- draw_down 8y agoYeah, I thought it was fishing nets too.
- gruez 8y agothat only talks about garbage content in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. maybe cigarette butts have different physical characteristics that causes it to accumulate differently than plastics? edit: reading the paper further, it looks like they're only surveyed plastics, not any other materials.
- Isamu 8y agoFrom the article: > The vast majority of the 5.6 trillion cigarettes manufactured worldwide each year come with filters made of cellulose acetate, a form of plastic that can take a decade or more to decompose
- amluto 8y ago> The vast majority of the 5.6 trillion cigarettes manufactured worldwide each year come with filters made of cellulose acetate, a form of plastic that can take a decade or more to decompose. Another way of saying this is: they’re moderately biodegradable. It would seem reasonable to give manufacturers a strong incentive to make them even more biodegradable. (To be clear, I think that smoking in public commercial spaces is seriously problematic, and I think that smokers should find a way to responsibly dispos of their trash or have one forced on them. But it does seem like the degree of blame here is a bit overblown.)
- mmanfrin 8y agoCigarette butts will have fully degraded within 15 years. Plastic straws take hundreds of years unless they're flaked off by the sun and then become small plastic bits in the stomachs of fish (still undegraded). It's all bad, but cigarette butts are significantly less worse than plastic.
- scoopdewoop 8y agoEven considering the cartridges, vaping is much less impactful as far as littering. Even one small juul pod replaces at least a pack worth of butts. With time less wasteful designs can certainly catch on.