Kudos to Jeff and Karen Lazzaro for trying to do something to clear our streets of cigarette butts [“ButtBusters: A Litter Bit at a Time,” Xpress, Jan. 30]. Being in the local transportation business, I spend the majority of my time transporting visitors around our community. With all the litter along the interstate, the drive in from the airport is unsightly enough, and I always hope our visitors don’t notice.
However, our major intersections are atrocious. Check out the amount of cigarette butts at the off ramp at Charlotte Street sometime. It’s horrible! Both of my parents were heavy smokers and I never once saw them throw a cigarette out of the car. Never.
So, I have several suggestions regarding this issue—and no, quitting smoking is not one of them. (Frankly I don’t care; that’s a personal decision.) But people can do these things: First, have some pride in your community—don’t litter. Secondly, if you see someone toss a cigarette from a car, report them to the Swat-A-Litterbug campaign at www.NCDOT.org. Lastly, to you smokers: Keep your butts in the car! If for no other reason, think about this. We are in the midst of a prolonged drought, and we live in a forest!
— Tommy Hewitt
Swannanoa
I lived in northern Arizona for a few years during their drought. Besides lightening, a common cause of forest fires is the lit cigarette flicked out a car window. Up in the pine forests, dry to the bone in June, cigarette flicking was upgraded to a misdemeanor. If a fire was started, that remained a felony. Yes, you could do jail time for it simply for littering even if a fire didn’t start. To this day, years later, I get irritated when I see someone throw a lit cigarette out of a car window. Thanks for the link. I’m going to start dropping a dime on these inconsiderate people.
seriously. good letter. and here’s the url for the swat-a-litterbug program, wasn’t obvious from the front-page from what i saw.
http://www.ncdot.org/doh/Operations/dp_chief_eng/roadside/Beautification/Litterbug/
Cigarette litter sucks, no butts about it.
Did you know that the city of Ash ville spends thousands of dollars a month just picking peoples butts…off the ground, and out of cracks and crevasses around town.
Those of us at ButtUgly.org has had enough. Check out our site and be on the look for our new ButtUgly Video due out shortly.
ButtUgly is looking for those who fed up with the litter issue enough to join our ButtUgly campaign to help snub out Cigarette litter here in Asdheville. Contact info@buttugly.org.
My own idea: smokers should be forced to eat (or at least swallow) the butts of their cigarettes. They also should — if they choose to smoke in their cars — be forced to keep the windows rolled all the way up.
Got to agree here will y’all. I get tired of seeing people throw lit cigarette butts from their cars. You can start a fire that way. If they catch these people, they ought to make them pick up cigarette butts off the ground every Saturday for a month.
If you drive around Warren Wilson college, there is more than cigarette butts not in the car. There are real moons put out the windows!