Why do people think that tossing out a cigarette butt isn't littering?

[Bleacher Creature]

It absolutely drives me crazy. People toss their cigarette butts to the ground, stub out the flame, and just leave the rest right there, notwithstanding the plastic filter. All without blinking an eye. And I'm willing to bet that at least some of the people who do that would be never in a million years throw an empty plastic bottle to the ground and just leave it there.

Does this bother others as much as it does me?

[qazplm135]

1. Smokers already care little about their own health

Why do we think they'd care about littering?

Yes hashtag notallsmokers but the volume of butts suggests damnnearallsmokers.

[rampartc]

2. if you have ever "policed an area" in the military ............

of course this is littering. the dirty result of a dirty habit.

people learn to smoke from people they consider to be "cool." both real and Hollywood. the casual distain for those who have to clean up their mess is part of the "cool ness."

[samnsara]

3. years ago i was riding in the car with a future trumper...

...( i was able to tolerate him back then)..and someone tossed a butt out the window. My friends response was so epic....'Too bad they didn't make that expensive car with ashtrays!'

[True Dough]

4. I'm with you on that!

Some people have no hint of compunction about tossing a cigarette butt out the window as they're driving. Others go even farther, discarding their entire fast foot packaging. I get so livid when that happens.

Another one that bugs me, and I'm a dog owner, is people who walk their dogs along public trail systems and don't bother to pick up OR they actually put the turds in a bag but leave the bag sitting there alongside the trail. My wife and I were flabbergasted one time to see a full dog poop bag lying on the ground only several feet from a garbage can. Really!!!! The individual couldn't be bothered to put that bag in the bin? Astonishing!

[ProudLib72]

11. Dog poop bags get me too.

I see them all the time. When you have a park that is used by thousands of people, it gets to be a huge problem. And it doesn't seem to matter how nice the neighborhood is. People who just don't care about properly disposing of their dog's poop come in all shapes and sizes.

[zipplewrath]

5. Occasionally

It bothers me less when the butt is going to end up in the gutter or sewer pipe. Far worse things go down there. I get more irritated when it is on something like a beach, or a sand trap at the golf course. Kinda pisses me off when I see them in the urinal too, not sure why really. Ya don't see that as much anymore since folks can't smoke indoors most places. One time it really "burned" me was when I noticed at an intersection I crossed regularly that there was a small area near the traffic light where the grass was dead and missing. Looking at it for a little while I realized so many people were tossing butts there that between the bit of heat and the nicotine leaching out during the rain, it had made the ground barren. For some reason that just pissed me off.

[Wellstone ruled]

6. Hollywood made the Cig Butt

finger flip famous and it has just kept chic yet today.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. Because they're idiots.

And thoughtless.

[LuckyCharms]

8. I have not smoked for years, but back then...

I would snuff them out on the ground leaving nothing but a little black ash. Then I put the butt in my pocket and disposed of it later at home.

I would not even throw a snuffed out butt in a public garbage can, because I was always paranoid of a fire in case it was not fully snuffed out.

[hopeforchange2008]

9. I had the exact thought at lunchtime

I saw two young women illegally turn right at a stop, and they both littered butts as they rounded the corner.

It got me thinking that the tobacco companies should be on the hook for clean-up of their discarded product, or, at the least, responsible for PSAs on how improper disposal of butts is littering.

[Coventina]

10. The ones that throw them out of cars enrage me.

They don't even put them out first!

I flip them off, and they flip me off back!

[Karadeniz]

12. Personal responsibility issue....a German who saw that would pick it up and give it back!

[Codeine]

13. They're already okay with poisoning the air

and stinking up any room they enter, why would an endless trail of litter everywhere they go bother them in the slightest?

[Major Nikon]

14. Two reasons

One is that the people who do it are trashy. The other is there’s no penalty for doing it. I’ve seen shitheels do it in full view of the police and not get called on it.

[Codeine]

15. I was watching a Formula1 race in Singapore

a few years back and the commentators mentioned that the team principal of Ferrari wasn’t at qualifying because he had been arrested just before it started for discarding a cigarette butt on the sidewalk. I laughed probably harder than I should have.