#hippie stuff#smoking#as much as smoking is something that i will never do#it’s a habit that c
Thu, Jun. 12th, 2025 11:38![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
If you smoke, don’t leave your butts on the ground. Dispose of them properly. The same applies if you use nicotine pouches, don’t spit them out on the ground and leave them there, dispose of them properly.
While littering in general is usually a bad idea because the littered trash can be hazardous to wildlife or even people (and let’s face it, just makes a place look uglier) littering nicotine products is especially harmful to wildlife and humans alike. In urban areas tap water often has nicotine in it due to all the littered nicotine products such as cigarette butts and nictotine pouches, due to rain runoff carrying nicotine into water sources used by both humans and wildlife. You’re free to take up whatever habits you like so long as they do not infringe on others, but littering your nicotine products taints water supplies which unfairly forces nicotine on others who don’t get a say in the matter.
Now, I have heard some people try to reason this away with “but tossing a still warm cigarette butt into the trash can cause a trash fire so if there isn’t a cigarette disposal box around smokers have no choice but to stomp it out on the ground and leave it there!” However, there is something that exists called a pocket ash tray which does allow smokers to safely store away their cigarette butts until they’re cool enough to properly dispose of.
If you stomped it out on the ground it is definitely cold enough to be put in the trash can. You can pick it up. You just don’t want to.
Pocket ash trays can also be super cheap and easy to find and carry. We sometimes keep them in our field kits in case we are working with someone who smokes and doesn’t have one, to help prevent forest fires as well as reduce litter. It’s such a tiny amount of effort; please use them!!
- A single cigarette butt takes up to 10 or 12 years to completely decompose.
- A single cigarette butt can pollute 50 litres of potable water. This is because the cigarette butt is the most polluting part of the cigarette, because most of the nicotine and pitch are located in the cigarette filter.
- Lit cigarette butts are one of the main causes of forest fires in many countries.
- Besides nicotine and pitch, the cigarette butt also has lead, mercury, ammonia, and others. Since the cigarette butt is small, it often can’t be caught by the water treatment plants and ends up in rivers and seas, where it pollutes fish and birds.
- And studies say 2 out of every 3 cigarettes end up on the floor, not properly disposed!
Sources: Dr. Darío Fernández in El Cierre Digital, Sociedad Española de Neumología y Cirugía Torácica.
Former smoker who had an EXTREMELY unreasonable habit-
I was considered weird and shaded for making sure I picked up my butts and threw them away/took them with me til I had a trash can.
You CAN pick it up. You just don’t want to.
And if someone who was a chain smoking chimney with 5 butts to worry about after stepping out for 15 mins could be accountable for not leaving toxic litter in the park or all over the sidewalk,
I HEAVILY side eye people who smoke less than I did acting like it’s an arduous task to properly dispose of the waste their addictive habit produces.
I live in an area where there are no storm drains and we get the runoff from a busy downtown area with several restaurants and bars, and the amount of butts that end up on our street and in our yards after a rain is outrageous. And if I don’t scoop them up, their next stop is the creek at the end of the block.
#hippie stuff#smoking#as much as smoking is something that i will never do#it’s a habit that comes with so many cool accoutrements#why would you not want to have a specific accessory for this#this is an opportunity for#fashion#the sheer sexiness of bringing out your specific accessory to put out your cigarette and keep it contained#hottttt#rather than being a litterbug ew#how uncool
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Seriously! I don’t smoke either, but when I looked up pocket ash trays some of them were really cool. I saw a metal one shaped like a coffin for the goths. I saw some beautiful hand carved ones with abalone and/or mother of pearl. There’s all sorts of cool designs for pocket ash trays out there! It could be a cool conversation starter with your fellow smokers. Why would you rather be a litter bug who contaminates your local water supply, when you could have a cool accessory like that?