I can’t find a news source, but ICRT just mentioned on their headline use that environmental groups are agitating for stricter regulations on smokers because 30% toss their butts and most don’t know that they contain microplastics that contaminate the water. Their proposed solution is to charge a deposit when one buys a pack and return the money when the butts are brought back.
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Lol what? Take your buds back to the store?
So 7 Eleven staff are gonna sit there and count them?
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I like the idea in theory, maybe do something kind of similar to the glass beer bottles where bringing back a pack with 10 butts inside gets you $10 off your next pack or something. However as was mentioned I don’t know how many convenience store clerks will want to handle people’s dirty butts with their bare hands.
Why can’t they start by putting some goddamn ashtrays in this country?? Cha bu duo…
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And they stink after a day. You’d have to store them in a vacuum sealed container. Imagine how 7-11 will smell after taking those in.
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My oh my.
It seems the popular place to put these butts are the storm drains. I have noticed in newer areas of Taipei, that the storm drain covers have much less of a gap, effectively preventing a litterer from putting their cig butt down them. Genius. It is hilarious to see stuck cigarette butts in these new drains, as it must have looked quite lame for the person trying to litter to make such a (failed) effort to pull it off successfully.
Then they throw it on the street, it washes into the drain, and plugs it up.
It would almost certainly help if local governments here installed more public trashcans. I hate littering, but it’s frustrating how far one often needs to walk, even on main roads in Taipei, before seeing one. This seems to have gotten worse in the last year or so, with many of the trash cans at bus stops near me apparently removed (because of coronavirus?).
I’m not really surprised that people lacking my impeccable standards of social responsibility might decide “sod this” and throw cigarette butts in storm drains, when that’s often the only option other than carrying them around until the end of time.
The butt deposit scheme seems ridiculous and doomed to failure, though.
It always baffles me that big companies are allowed to produce sh*t and then the people have to figure out how to deal with the aftermath. Same goes for all the unnecessary packaging of gazillion of products, shiny difficult-to-recycle materials, all that crap.
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It’s such an easily sortable problem. Tax the shit out of it. Tax plastic. Tax tobacco. The problem won’t be sorted completely, but it will be massively reduced.
Before the predictable replies it is much less of a freedom of rights issue as banning drugs.
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Sadly throwing litter in public is excepted here, i wish they could do something to curb it.
Maybe like illegal parking where the police would share the money collected from ticket with the reporter .
Not so easy but a thought. smokes in seattle for some good brands are almost 10usd .
Here they are too cheap , double or triple them to help pay for there cleanup?
Good idea. They could charge deposits. Bring back your 20 butts when you buy a new pack or you need to pay. It would work.
I’m sure they could do an outdoor collection system. Maybe even only seen cigarettes at larger stores willing to accept them.
I used to be against these ideas but since I’ve quit, I’m getting on board
They don’t have them because with in an hour or two, they’ll be overflowing with bags of household garbage, thus saving the lazy from having to run outside for the trash trucks.
Also, then recycling has to be done manually by the collectors.
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Yeah, I realize that this can be a problem and is often used as the rationale for not having more bins…but still, I think that if you want to stop people littering, realistically, you have to give them a practical alternative to doing so.
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Or what about making cigarette filters not contain microplastics or something? Like cellulose based filters? Probably less unhealthy too because you wouldn’t be breathing in burning plastic anyways.
How many times have I wished the farmer near my house smoked unfiltered cigarettes? The road is often littered with his cigarette butts that his tosses while he is filling up his container with pesticides to spray on the fields.
This is certainly not only a Taiwan problem. Smokers feel that they are a being harassed by society so is their right to thrown their cigs wherever they want. I still remember my sister (a district judge in Texas) throwing her cigs into the parking lot at the funeral home every time we went to handle my father’s passing. I could hardly say anything considering my brother with us was sensitive about people complaining about his smoking.
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Don’t Texas judges have to be really careful with what they do in public because judges in Texas are elected?
I like big butts
(474) Sir Mix Alot - Baby Got Back~ (I like big butts and i can not lie!)(lyrics)(HQ) - YouTube
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In general yes. My sister got arrested once for carrying a gun into an airport. Actually, judges in Texas can carry concealed guns so was not charged with anything. She actually just forgot she had the gun in that handbag. At that point, she was a little nervous as she had made a few of the guys in the “good old boys” network a little mad at her…seemed a few death threats were thrown around.