Guest writer

No butts about it

Where there’s smoke . . .

— Well, you know the rest of it; you’ve heard it all your life: There’s fire.

But, sometimes it’s also true that where there’s a smoker, there’s fire. Or, at least, a high probability for it unless responsible care is taken to fully extinguish and properly dispose of all remaining tobacco waste.

This possibility intensifies when the smoker is in a vehicle and chooses to deposit a spent but still-lit cigarette butt into the environment. Compound this behavior with our weather situation, when extreme drought has offered up our roadsides, parks and public areas as a tinderbox, and our state faces the prospect for disaster.

Driving Arkansas’ highways this summer, it hasn’t been uncommon to see burned-out areas along the roadside where cigarettes have been tossed out windows. According to the Arkansas Forestry Commission, as of Thursday about half of Arkansas’ counties still have a high wildfire danger due to dry vegetation, windy conditions and low humidity levels. Fires can escape control easily and

containment is difficult, endangering human safety and property. While the recent rainfalls have helped to calm things down, significant rainfall is still needed.

“It doesn’t take long for a lit cigarette to start a grass fire, and in this dry weather those fires can spread very quickly,” says Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department Director Scott Bennett.

Cigarette butts tossed out of vehicles are the biggest litter concern when it comes to fire prevention. Motorists are urged to exercise good judgment and take necessary precautions year-round, but especially during periods of dry weather.

Fire isn’t the only hazard associated with cigarette butts when they are thrown out of vehicle windows or otherwise end up on our roadsides, and elsewhere. Each filter contains dozens of carcinogenic chemicals and toxins which can leach into surrounding soil and water, adding contamination which eventually ends up in groundwater. Further, when butts accumulate in street gutters, storm runoff sweeps them into drains, where their volume can cause clogs and overflows. As most storm drains also empty into public waterways, this contamination is meaningful, raising the prospect of spreading, through irrigation systems, into crops and requiring extra precaution in municipal water treatment.

Cigarette litter is also detrimental to the state and its communities by creating unsightly and unsanitary conditions that can be viewed by visitors as indicators of the environmental suitability for recreation, retirement, relocation and investment prospects. Cleanliness attracts, sending the positive signal that a community values its physical and visual elements and supports a culture that appreciates and sustains environmental quality.

Keep America Beautiful, the nation’s volunteer-led community-improvement organization, offers communities a useful guide to reduce cigarette litter; the Cigarette Litter Prevention Program is free and effective in reducing tobacco waste in communities. Hot Springs, Garland County, Little Rock, Sherwood, Pine Bluff and Van Buren are among Arkansas communities that have implemented it and have achieved significant reductions in cigarette litter.

It might seem that some state agencies and others are overly focused on cigarette litter, but the facts support our concern. The Arkansas Litter Reporting System, the statewide toll-free litter hot line which receives motorists’ reports of observed littering on the state’s roads, has logged

well over 54,000 calls since its

inception in December of 2004. Of these, 29,350 calls involved incidents of the littering of tobacco waste. The hotline, (866) 811-1222, is maintained by the Highway Department and promoted by Keep Arkansas Beautiful to increase awareness of the negative consequences of littering and to educate motorists on improved practices toward our shared environment.

Likewise, the Keep Arkansas Beautiful Foundation has funded efforts to urge smokers to adopt responsible actions with their waste.

The state Highway and Transportation Department spends about $5 million annually for litter removal. Combined with the litter education, prevention and remediation programs of Keep Arkansas Beautiful and litter-control efforts of the state’s communities, a conservative estimate would match this expense, costing Arkansas $10 million a year. This is a huge expense for a problem that can be controlled by individual responsibility.

If all motorists are diligent about the proper disposal of litter, this annual expenditure could be greatly reduced. Just imagine how these savings could be spent and the positive improvements that could be achieved,.

Isn’t it time to clear up the cloud of misunderstanding that cigarette butts aren’t litter, not harmful, no big deal? The facts are otherwise. It’s time to fire up citizens to put a damper on this unacceptable, harmful, expensive and pernicious blight.

—–––––

Robert Phelps is the executive director of the Keep Arkansas Beautiful Commission.

Editorial, Pages 19 on 08/31/2012

Upcoming Events