[irrational]

This was a fascinating read. I'm surprised tobacco is the number 1 litter. I rarely see people smoking anymore where I live, so I would assume it would not be a top contributor to litter. Is smoking still very prevalent in San Fransisco?

[Reedx]

> Is smoking still very prevalent in San Fransisco?

No, but for some reason people think throwing cigarette butts on the ground and out of car windows isn't littering.

[woah]

They are returning the gifts of the tobacco plant to the Earth

[kevin_thibedeau]

Along with the dino juice for the filter. It's a circle of life.

[brenden2]

I have a dog, and when we're walking around I always notice all the cigarette butts on the ground (because my dog tries to eat everything off the ground so I have to watch). It doesn't surprise me that so much litter is just tobacco products.

(Also I live in NYC these days, but I used to live in SF).

[booleandilemma]

And nowadays in NYC I’m seeing discarded plastic vaping things, which is even worse, imo.

[brenden2]

I've noticed this too. If you have a dog, you also learn very quickly just how many discarded chicken bones exist throughout the city (hint: it's more than you want it to be).

[elenaguberman]

I completely agree. I clean up with Emin and rubbish, and this project was initially inspired because I have a corgi vacuum cleaner who eats everything on the ground. Once I started scanning, it's impossible to unsee the litter. So we started cleaning and recording it!

[Rychard]

Discarded chicken wings have become a bit of a trope in Atlanta.

https://www.instagram.com/wingsofatl/

[toomanybeersies]

Most smokers assume that filters are actually biodegradable (it is possible to buy biodegradable filters if you roll your own), when in fact they aren't.

I never chuck my butts on the ground, if there isn't a rubbish bin nearby, I'll either put the butt back in my packet, or just put it in my pocket. When I see friends tossing their butts I always have a go at them for littering, most just don't even realise what they're doing is wrong.

[leetcrew]

I'm not sure that many smokers still believe butts are biodegradable, but I could certainly be wrong.

I suspect (as an exsmoker) that it's more about the availability of cigarette receptacles. most smokers I know are willing to dispose of butts when there's a convenient place to put them, but are not willing to carry them around until they find a suitable place. used cigarettes make your clothes smell a lot worse that merely smoking outside.

[CriticalCathed]

I think it's not so much that it's very prevalent, I think it's that most smokers don't carry their butts away with them if there's not a trash can 30 millimeters from their hands.

[pbhjpbhj]

Ha, drivers almost certainly have a ready receptacle in their car, they still wind down the window and throw the butts out.

[eldenbishop]

Some interesting tidbits on cigarette litter in San Francisco.

A study commissioned by SF Public Works in 2009 determined that the direct costs for cigarette related litter in San Francisco could be remediated with a 22 cent per pack tax. The actual tax in San Francisco is 85 cents per pack known as the "Cigarette Litter Abatement Fee". The 2009 study claimed around 30 million packs/year are sold in San Francisco which would be roughly 25 million dollars a year in taxes collected for this purpose with an estimated cleanup cost of only 7-8 million. So not only are cigarette smokers already paying for the cleanup they are paying nearly four times the actual cleanup cost for their litter.

The 2009 study: https://sfpublicworks.org/sites/default/files/tobacco_litter...

The tax: https://sftreasurer.org/cigarette

[gdulli]

In my city, cigarettes and scratch-off lottery tickets seem to be the things that people don't feel any particular need to dispose of properly.

[twic]

Cigarette butts, lottery tickets, and coffee cups - the detritus of addiction. Is there a connection there?

[chrischen]

I think the connection is probably poverty. They gives less of a ____.

[mirimir]

I guess. When I was really poor, I rolled my own cigarettes. And when I finished one, I kept the tobacco in a small plastic bag. As backup, for when I was too poor to buy more.

You may say "yuck". But trust me, good tobacco the second time around is better than the stuff in those nasty папироса.

[twic]

How do you smoke tobacco twice?

[mirimir]

You take the tobacco from a butt, loosen it up, and air dry it. Then you roll it into another cigarette. Maybe mix with some fresh tobacco, for a milder taste. People don't typically smoke cigarettes down to a roach. Except for those Russian ones, with the paper tubes.

[roguecoder]

Even if that is true, it is more likely the result of poverty being inherently stressful and requiring the use of cognitive resources rich people can spend on other things (https://zhaolab.psych.ubc.ca/pdfs/Zhao_2013_Science.pdf)

[chrischen]

Yes, that's what not giving a ___ is. But I don't think it's always stress, it could also be different priorities.

[maccard]

Yes - disposable/single use items.

[codeddesign]

It’s a little subjective though. 800 Starbucks cups is a much larger issue compared to 1500 cigarette butts (for example)

[jazzyjackson]

Is it tho? Coffee cups are made of paper. Cigarette butts are a plastic foam embedded with a multitude of carcinogens.

[mihok]

I don't have a reference, but I believe coffee cups are assumed to be recyclable even though actually, and in most part due to the polyethylene-lined inside, they are not.

[hanniabu]

And here I am thinking it was a wax lining. Why would you a plastic lining for something you put hot liquid in, which would cause leeching? (Not that was doesn't have issues, aka melting)

[merlincorey]

Try putting some hot water in a "cup" you make from paper and you may find that the thin plastic barrier makes some functional sense.

I agree however, that I'd rather just use re-usable glass or metal cup (with a handle or suitable insulated wrappping) and avoid the potential for hot liquids leaching things out of plastic!

[toomanybeersies]

Not all plastic causes leeching, and as you said, wax melts which is definitely leeching.

[layoutIfNeeded]

Wrong. Cigarette filters are made from cellulose.

[singron]

Cigarette filters are made from cellulose acetate, which you could consider a plastic although it's not a petrochemical (it's the same plastic commonly used in eyeglass frames).

However, a used cigarette butt will additionally contain adhesives and any flavorings as well as some leftover compounds deposited by the smoke. The wikipedia article goes into higher detail on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette_filter

Cellulose acetate is only sort-of biodegradable like Cellulose. Here is a study looking at the topic: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10924-010-0258-...

> Cellulose is readily biodegraded by organisms that utilize cellulase enzymes, but due to the additional acetyl groups cellulose acetate requires the presence of esterases for the first step in biodegradation. Once partial deacetylation has been accomplished either by enzymes, or by partial chemical hydrolysis, the polymer’s cellulose backbone is readily biodegraded.

I.e. if you throw butts in an ordinary compost pile, they might not get anywhere for a while.

[pbhjpbhj]

Are they all? I've always assumed they were plastic, surprised this hasn't been raised to my notice before, eg in advertising "our cigarettes are entirely compostable" or something.

[ac29]

You're both right: cigarette filters are made from cellulose acetate, which is a synthetic polymer fiber.

[NeedMoreTea]

I suspect filling them with tar and other gunk from the burnt tobacco puts them closer to hazardous waste than nicely compostable.

[IfOnlyYouKnew]

Tar, and other tobacco detritus, isn't really dangerous: The asphalt it's lying on is actually very similar, chemically.

Cigarette butts without the filter are easily degraded organic (carbon) compounds. You can compost them and will get perfectly acceptable potting soil.

Same story for the various additives. As a rule, anything that has a physiological effect and isn't a heavy metal is biodegradable.

[autoexec]

they are made from cellulose acetate and take 15-20 years to break down. The same stuff they used to make tape drives for the IBM 701

[roguecoder]

Yes: people smoke walking down the street all the time. It is a real challenge having asthma.

I blame the lack of a real winter. In the northeast people quit smoking when it was banned indoors, because they didn't want to smoke in the freezing cold snow, whereas in SF people just go outside all year around.

[hapless]

Every smoker is producing 20 to 40 pieces of litter per day -- every butt that gets tossed.

[baud147258]

20 to 40 smokes every day is very heavy smoking, I'd guess most smoker aren't at that level

[hapless]

It's somewhat heavy, but not extraordinarily so. The average smoker consumes just under a pack a day. A heavy smoker might go through two or three packs a day.