Cigarette butts

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by MoD, Jul 22, 2010.

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Cigarette butts

  1. No smoking at all

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  2. Tobacco only but trash the butts

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  3. Smoke only tobacco and toss the butts

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  4. Smoke'em if you've got them (don't care either way)

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  1. MoD

    MoD Junior Member

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    I won't let anyone smoke commercial (aka chemical laden) cigarettes on my perm site but will allow roll your own pure tobacco to be smoked. A bit like being around a wood fire vs. the smoke from burning plastic to me.

    BUT I don't want the butts tossed on the ground.

    Seems like a concentrated bits of nicotine scattered around my site wouldn't be a good thing to have.

    Wondering how other sites deal with this issue.
     
  2. Fernando Pessoa

    Fernando Pessoa Junior Member

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    If your soil is worth it's salt,it should be able to remedy the problem.The micro organisms and fungi communities in healthy soils can break down all manner of nasties.In my opinion it's just ostracizing drug addicts with no real reason.Heres my reasoning,I am sure you have nasty habits as well such as buying packaged food or plastic bottles or even driving a car,I would never ostracize you for being so inconsiderate as to fill up my landfill, with your poison or pollute my atmosphere with your fumes.Why accept one poison and not another?Can't we all just get along>?
     
  3. Adam

    Adam Junior Member

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    I don't smoke and prefer not to be around smokers, but I don't think I would go so far as to forbid smoking at a permaculture site... although considering the waste of packaging and non-compostable nature of commercial cigarette butts I certainly would be tempted to. I can't stand seeing cigarette butts lying scattered on the ground. I wouldn't so much be worried about the nicotene but rather the filters which seem to resist biodegrading.
     
  4. Adam

    Adam Junior Member

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    By the way, MoD, why don't you start a thread in the "Members' Systems" thread and describe/show us what your permaculture site looks like? I am very interested to know!
     
  5. pebble

    pebble Junior Member

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    If you're talking about home grown tobacco in rollie papers then just compost them or burn them - without the commercial additives it's just a plant. If you're talking about filters, then I don't understand why you would ban commercial tobacco but not the filters.

    I agree to some extent with Fernando. I don't smoke, but it is a fairly strong addiction and expecting people to not smoke at all would be very exclusionary. Do you tell people how they can access non-commercial tobacco?
     
  6. geoff

    geoff Junior Member

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    Can I ask what the difference is between options 2 and 3? One has "trash" the butts, the other "toss" the butts, and as far as I can tell they're saying pretty much the same thing.

    We've been through this discussion on another site in the last few days. Here in Oz it's illegal to grow your own...
    https://www.ato.gov.au/businesses/content.asp?doc=/content/00184278.htm

    I'm guessing the penalties are probably harsher and more certain than those for growing other illicit plant life, given how big a moneymaker tobacco is for government.
     
  7. pebble

    pebble Junior Member

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    Wow, I didn't know that. How incredibly bizarre. I'd like to see how that is written into law. Is it the growing of the plant that is prohibited, or is it the growing of the plant to produce tobacco? eg in NZ you can grow opium poppies but you can't harvest them with the intent to use as a drug.
     
  8. geoff

    geoff Junior Member

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    Sad isn't it?

    Our Excise Act provides the restrictions that require a permit to grow the stuff, so that's the fundamental law in place, and then they eliminate the home growers by restricting permits to only those people with a market for the substance, essentially, commercial interests only. Given that we don't have rights here that doesn't surprise me so much.

    Biodiesel is covered under the same excise act, but you can get a permit to produce it for personal use (for now, though I'm sure they'll change their mind if permitted)
     
  9. pebble

    pebble Junior Member

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    Strange legislation - it uses a common name instead of the botanical name of the plant. But I see it's an Act from 1901. That explains quite alot. Do you know if there have been any challenges to that?
     
  10. Fernando Pessoa

    Fernando Pessoa Junior Member

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    I agree banned plants are ridiculous,i was growing some cannabis indica,because its an excellent firewood(sic) and great green fodder as well as producing exceptional quality oil and seed cake for my fowls.Now why would you ban a plants as usefull as that!
    Best wishes
    Fernando.
     
  11. MoD

    MoD Junior Member

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    Yeah, trying to soften my stance against tobacco (by allowing tobacco only smoking) but no way I'll allow commercial cig smoking on site. Too many chemicals in that crap...formaldehyde, ammonia even heavy metals. Huge difference, can't even be around commercial cig smoke.

    Guess I've spent too much time cleaning up my site (had junk cars on it once) so I'm not wild about people adding trash to it and the soil is still a work in progress.

    As to the toss vs trash on the butts. Toss=toss the on the ground. Trash=dispose off site.

    I don't feel like I'm ostracizing anyone, just some activities aren't welcome on-site.

    Adam: Been meaning to post info on my site...but I do have a website if you care to check it out.

    www.ape99.org

    The pics and video are from the 1st year (on the 2nd now)

    More recent vids here:

    https://www.youtube.com/user/ape99dotorg

    Thanks
     
  12. geoff

    geoff Junior Member

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    Don't soil organisms produce formaldehyde and ammonia too? ;)
     
  13. sun burn

    sun burn Junior Member

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    I think this is a bit extreme. I used to smoke and always thought it good that nicoteine was a natural pesticide. I think being so fastidious about commerical rubbish on your plot is to extent of unhealthy fanasticism. However, asking people not to smoke around you because you don't like the smell and believe its harmful is fair enough. And asking people to dispose of their nasty filter buts thoughtfully eg by taking them away preferably is also a good idea.
     
  14. pebble

    pebble Junior Member

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    I'm still not clear MoD - by butts do you mean filters? Or just the rollie ends? It seems reasonable to ask people to take filters (and other waste that you can't use on site) away with them. If it's just the rollie ends, then I can't see a problem.

    I agree that commercial tobacco has some seriously bad shit in it.

    Sun burn, it's not just about dislike of the smell and belief. Some people *are harmed by secondhand smoke. I'm not even talking about cancer risk. I'm talking about people who are asthmatic or highly sensitive to chemicals etc.
     
  15. MoD

    MoD Junior Member

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    Here's a list of whats found in industrial cigs.
    https://www.tricountycessation.org/tobaccofacts/Cigarette-Ingredients.html

    Well I hardly see it as 'unhealthy fanaticism'...why would I spent the time and effort to make a space to live clean and naturally yet allow people to pollute it by burning toxic chemicals?

    Pebble: Was treating the butts and the rollie ends as the same...but knowing that butts are really trash as they don't break down. Just seems simpler to require smokers to clean up after themselves...one monkey sees the other throwing something on the ground then they think it's ok to toss anything on the ground.

    Geoff: Don't know if they produce those chems or not...but I'm pretty sure they don't add a bunch more chems then make them airborne via smoke.
     
  16. sun burn

    sun burn Junior Member

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    When i said "believe it to be harmful" i was not being skeptical. I accept that cigarette smoke is harmful.
     
  17. MoD

    MoD Junior Member

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    BTW Just found this:

    Are cigarette butts litter? Absolutely! But unlike paper products they're not biodegradable. Nearly all cigarette filters are composed of a bundle of 12,000 plastic-like cellulose acetate fibers. Cellulose acetate is photodegradable but not bio-degradable. It can take years, in some cases up to fifteen, for ultraviolet light to cause fibers to decay into a plastic powder that can't be seen. As they do their deadly cargo is released.

    The nicotine trapped inside 200 used filters is likely sufficient to kill a 160 pound adult human - 50 to 60 milligrams. Imagine a month without rain followed by a brief thunderstorm that washes 500,000 nicotine laden canoes - enough to kill 2,500 humans - into area creeks and streams. Aquatic life at the bottom of the food chain can pay a deadly price. But so can fish who mistake butts for food or birds who use them for nesting material. Nicotine isn't the only villain as trapped tars and toxic gases leach into waterways too.

    From here:
    https://whyquit.com/whyquit/A_Butts.html
     
  18. kimbo.parker

    kimbo.parker Junior Member

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    and i, mr consistent,

    find butts on the ground and pick them up and re-roll and smoke them.
    i have a tobacco addiction, but i will not pay any thing to die from it.

    it seems a hell dirty thing doesn't it....
    it becomes less, each time you do it.....one desensitises to that aspect of what one is doing.....hardly without precedent.

    one could just as easily insist on no chemical body deodorisers at ones place of business,,,this would look more *cultured than some abstract line drawing based on personal prejudice?....you can't smoke but you can do this? or that?

    tolerance and diversity........adaptability.....resilience....................a ban on smoking is an intolerable act viz the lack of tolerance to smoking....QED
    it is a very human bit of....don't like that, cut it down.

    i think we can do better....
    cough splutter,
    kimbo
     
  19. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    I have so much respect for you Kimbo. "Produce no waste". No ciggie opportunity left unutilized. Permaculture at it's truest!
     
  20. permasculptor

    permasculptor Junior Member

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    I gave up durries before my son was born as I did,nt want him to be a smoker. I went through years of struggling with it . towards the end I just stopped buying them and the simple act of having to approach people to ask to buy a smoke off them at a inflated price was eventually enough to drive me to bumpers which I would collect and consume with gusto. after doing that for a while and seeing my competition for the quality bumpers(unfortunate types)I managed to replace the habit with diversions of any kind that kept me distracted from the fags(exercise being the best).Five years on and I have never looked back .
     

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