So I’m sitting at a red light today, turning the AC up another notch, when suddenly the guy in front of me opens his window and dumps his entire ashtray of cigarette butts on the ground! Can you imagine?! It’s bad enough people toss them out individually, but there must have been three or four packs worth in there.
Aside from irritating me so much that I leaned on my horn and let him know it (not sure if I expected him to apologize, get out and pick them up, or pull a gun on me), it made me wonder how long it takes those babies to biodegrade. Which, of course, leads us to our weekly random Google search.
Because it turns out that “it takes 10 years for one cigarette butt to biodegrade.”
Also:
It takes ten years for a new drug in the laboratory to get to the market.
It takes 10 years for land to recover after an oil spill.
It takes ten years for a Horseshoe Crab to reach sexual maturity to reproduce.
After CFC’s are emitted, it takes ten years for them to reach the stratosphere. Once there, they can continue to destroy ozone molecules for 75 to 100 years, depending on their type.
Averagely, it takes ten years for an HIV + positive person to develop the disease condition known as AIDS.
It takes ten years for an olive tree to bear fruit.
It takes ten years for a new technology to move from its beginnings in the lab to the point where it is available in sufficient quantities at a low enough price that it affects the general market. Five years from lab to street; five more years to drop in price and increase in availability.
Maybe somewhere, right now, someone’s working on some new technology that, 10 years from now, will help us deal with all the stray cigarette butts? Would be nice.
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This is something I detest, too. I hate pulling up to a stoplight and seeing the curb loaded with butts. Some people simply have no regards for keeping our lands clean. Just remember though – when you see a fast food wrapper laying on the ground, you don’t automatically have distain for everyone who eats fast food. I’m also a smoker and we’re not all alike.
posted by Steve S on 7-26-2006 at 12:29 am
This is my pet peeve. Why is this not considered litter? All types of people of all backgrounds have extenuated this nasty habit by littering its remains. In Singapore they’d get arrested! Maybe we need more laws here because we are so out of control?! If these buts are so gross that no one wants them in their cars or to dispose of them properly then well admit they are that gross and we should work to remove them from our lives- don’t smoke or try to quit! Maybe these liter bugs are totally unaware of their responsibility to the whole, that they are a part of the whole and how their actions have an impact. Let’s do our best to live and teach enlightenment and each tend to our garbage. That’s a clean start.
posted by Jian on 7-26-2006 at 8:31 am
It probably has to do with the small size. I’m sure throwing the pack out the window is considered littering. But a tiny butt? Can’t do much about that. Can you imagine being pulled over for biting your fingernail and throwing it out the window? Technically, that’s litter, albeit biodegradable.
If smokers want to smoke responsibly, as Steve S suggests, that’s fine. I just hope the guy I honked at didn’t write down my license plate number! He was, how shall I say it? – well, when he wasn’t smoking he was clearly busy working out at Gold’s Gym a lot…
posted by David on 7-26-2006 at 10:16 am