Are you seriously going to flick that out your window?

I don't care if you choose to smoke. However if you make that choice, at least try to be a courteous smoker. I don't force strangers walking into the store, office, or other public place to eat, drink, or ingest the things that I am consuming. So why would anyone think it's ok to do the same thing? And it's not just the smoke, which I can deal with by walking away, it's the carelessly tossed cigarette butt that is still smoldering. THAT is where I truly take offense, because that is where it becomes a problem for everyone.

Cigarette filters have been found in the stomachs of birds, fish, whales and other marine animals who mistake them for food.  This should be no surprise. According to some sources, there is an estimated several trillion cigarette butts littered every year. This is just the ones that are considered LITTER! I won't even go into the ridiculousness of the money spent on the addiction alone, but the clean up for this quantity of trash.

Cigarette filters are made of cellulose acetate, which is basically a plastic. This means that cigarette butts will take many years to decompose, anywhere from 2 - 20 years depending on what type of plastic was actually used. They are NOT BIO-degradable, just degradable, which means they will break down EVENTUALLY into smaller bits, but never into naturally occurring substances. EEEK!

Not to mention that they are used as filters to filter out the carcinogens, poisonous substances that the smoker didn't want to ingest... Guess what, neither does anyone else. Unfortunately, when left on the ground, they leach into our ground water supply for all to share. Or worse, they spark a fire that can cause major damage.

Recently there have been efforts made to use a biodegradable plastic made from corn (PLA – polylactic acid). One would hope that with increasing technology in degradable food containers, this would inspire attempts at creating a compostable filter made from food-grade starch found in foods such as potatoes and rice. This is all fine and dandy, but the point is, why are so many people just tossing their garbage out for the rest of us? Reasonable people don't toss spent batteries or containers full of paint thinner down the drain, and all of this comes back to us.

I realize we all have vices that we try to rationalize away, and many are more serious offenses than littering cigarette butts. We all share this planet and the resources on it. People who litter, still need clean water and benefit from trash-free public places too. I don't care who you are, or what you excuses give, take care of your trash. Stop blaming other people for your careless acts, and I won't complain about your smoke clouds lingering by the entrance to the grocery store.