Kvetch: Butt....Butt....

In the history of cigarettes, this decade is unlikely to be referred to as the Golden Age of Smoking: Prices rising at a rate exceeded only by gasoline; thetruth.com compiling disconcerting smoking factoids; governments banning smoking in public buildings and even how close you can be to the door when you're outside the building. Smokers hardly need any more lectures.

Too bad, here comes another one.

Actually, my beef isn't with smokers---many smokers are very conscientious about their consumption choice, and my only commentary on their smoking is hating the thought of any of my friends suffering from lung cancer or emphysema or some other condition that robs them of breath, literally and figuratively. But I have my vices, so I don't deny others theirs. (Though I do avoid some rock clubs due to the inevitable oxygen deprivation that comes with watching a show with 40 active puffers.)

No, my lecture is for litterers.

Along the curbs of Portland, concentrated around bus stops and coffee bars, I regularly see dozens, even scores of cigarette butts discarded in the street. These remnants are made of paper, synthetics, fiberglass, whatever it is they use to formulate the filter on cigarettes, and some smokers seem to think that tossing these butts is not littering. Tossing a candy wrapper on the ground is littering, so why is the same amount of material in cigabutt form not? This disconnect fascinates me. (Not in the way that octopuses fascinate me, but in the way that the bald-faced ambitions of some politicians fascinate me.) “They're biodegradable”, I have heard some butt-tossers inaccurately claim in their defense---they may decompose, but they're hardly biodegradable. Besides, is that a sufficient argument? Given enough time, everything will eventually decompose.

I think most of these smoker/litterers simply don't think about it---tossing a cigarette is tacitly tolerated by the general populace, and what else is a smoker supposed to do with the butt when they're standing on the sidewalk?

How about use an ashtray? I had a friend in Maine who carried a metal case about the size of a Pez dispenser to avoid tossing his butts on the ground, and I have several friends who simply hold onto them until they can dispose of them properly. Seeing them discarded in the street reminds me of a great MTV PSA from the 1980's: "When you throw something away, what exactly does 'away' mean?" In the case of these myriad bits of leftover Camels and Marlboros, “away” is apparently a distance between three and six feet.

If your one of these litterers, I'm hoping you might consider redefining “away” as something more than “away from me.”