Editorial: Join the civilised world, smokers

THE WELLINGTONIAN

OPINION: That cigarettes are bad for people's health is not new information. Everybody knows tobacco is seriously toxic and if they choose to smoke, there's a high probability it will eventually kill them in any number of slow and very unpleasant ways.

It shouldn't be a surprise that their fag ends aren't that good for the environment, either.

Yet, amazingly, smokers apparently don't consider their butts are really litter; just drop them and extinguish them underfoot, or don't bother to put them out, just fire the glowing dog-end out the car window and leave it to burn out.

Unfortunately, anything disposed of on the footpath or the road will eventually find its way into the stormwater drains, down the nearest waterway and, finally, into the harbour.

Butts carry with them a number of cumulative poisonous elements: mercury (5 parts per million, Gjika and Vittorioso, University of Southern Maine); lead (11ppm); zirconium (25ppm) and chromium (226ppm), as well as the plastic fibres the filters are made from and hydrocarbons.

Tobacco traffickers tell us their cigarette butts break down in as short a time as a month, but of course they were the same people who swore for decades that nicotine doesn't cause lung cancer. More reputable researchers puts the decomposition period at anything from one and 15 years, and the significant traces of heavy metals never decompose, just accumulate.

Councillor Celia Wade-Brown was an unfortunate choice to front Wellington City Council's efforts to discourage the filthy habit of tossing away butts on the ground. Nobody could ever doubt her environmental commitment, but smokers will see the programme as just another Greenie attempt to interfere in their lives and limit their freedom. It should not be a Green issue at all, because it is first and foremost a personal hygiene issue.

Although, cigarette butts and the nasty chemicals they contain are the largest form of litter world-wide (also Gjika and Vittorioso) chucking them on the ground or out the car window is a personal offence against absolutely everybody, regardless of political persuasion.

The city's footpaths are littered with cigarette butts; the worst areas being outside cafes, bars and restaurants. City flowerbeds and plant boxes fare badly too.

If smokers won't take responsibility, should our civic leaders? Should the council follow Singapore, known for its strict laws against littering, which banned smoking outdoors in 2006? Should smokers be slapped with hefty fines for dropping butts outdoors? Perhaps they should have to carry the smokers' equivalent of doggie-doo bags, where they can dispose of their butts.

If those smokers were to behave as civilised human beings, and respected others and their own city, contamination of waterways and the harbour would not be a concern. If they did not choose to create squalor around them, the health of the harbour's ecosystems and our fisheries would not be at risk further away.

Could it be that a predisposition to nicotine addiction is in fact an indicator that particular people are not quite ready to live in civilised society, coexisting with others? Perhaps not quite as evolved as the rest of us? Common smoker behaviour would support that hypothesis.