Australians Throw Less Butts - U.S. Needs Pocket Ashtray and Field-Stripping Campaign...

Found this on Reuter's Environmental News site Planet Ark:

"7 billion cigarette butts are littered by Australia's 3.7 million smokers every year.

As a result, 7% of Australia's bushfires are caused by discarded cigarettes - that's over 4,500 fires a year caused by cigarettes and smoking materials.

To combat this Planet Ark, Clean Up Australia and Landcare Australia have distributed half a million Go Green pocket ashtrays into 1,000 Coles Myer retail stores.

We want smokers to use the Go Green pocket ashtray for the great Australian outdoors:

* Keep our beaches and waterways clean

* Reduce the risk of bushfires

* Help protect our wildlife and vegetation

* Stop the littering of 7 billion butts

* Avoid butt littering fines"

...


We need these things here in America. I just can't understand how people who would never even throw a little piece of paper on the ground because they "hate littering", don't hesitate to always, always throw their cig butts on the ground, and most people never even stamp them out, they just throw a burning butt right into the streets, sidewalks and peoples yards.

Do what I do: Field-Strip your smokes. Either stamp it out with your shoe, and then throw it in the garbage, or tear off or pull off the butt (throw in garbage, or pocket butt bag), throw the cig part on the ground and stamp it out completely. Bits of tobacco and little specks of white paper on the ground are not the problem, they blow away into dust or decompose quickly, but cig butt filters stay around for years, thousands of years for the majority of them, which are made from plastic or other petroleum based concoctions. Camel cigs use cotton filters which might be gone in only 10 or 100 years I forget which.

NYC Mayor Michael "Bloomburglar" should commission an AD campaign promoting better BUTT behavior.

Come on people, don't be stupid; fight the urge to throw those butts on the ground, burning or not.

In addition to helping the environment immensely, if there's less cig butt litter anti-smoking ZEALOTS will have less to whine about.

:)