Home > Litter piling up all across the Tri-State

Litter piling up all across the Tri-State

Apartment Building Mar 9, 2006

THE FOLLOWING IS AN ARTICLE FROM:

The Herald-Dispatch
Sunday, February 27, 2005

There are some things that modern society uses that cause serious problems when their use is done. Tires create one set of problems. And now we can add cigarette butts to that list.

As things have worked out, the trend toward banning indoor smoking in public places is leading people to smoke more outside. Many smokers don’t bother to look for receptacles for their butts. They throw them on the ground, where they blow or wash away.

Cigarette filters are made of cellulose acetate, which takes two years to break down in nature. Sometimes they are eaten by wildlife. Sometimes the harmful chemicals in them leach into the environment, where they are ingested by small creatures.

And sometimes they end up on city streets, curbs, sidewalks and alleys. That is particularly true in Huntington, a city that already has a problem with litter.

"I think people are angry that they need to go out and smoke, so it’s almost a defiant act to litter," Kathleen Register, an adjunct professor of environmental sciences at Longwood University in Virginia, said in an article published in 2005 in The Herald-Dispatch.

That could be part of it, but what act of defiance leads people to toss paper cups, plastic bottles and other large items onto the city’s streets and alleyways? What act of defiance leads them to throw old tires, car seats and furniture along country roads?

Businesses and other downtown stakeholders can put ashtrays outside their doors for smokers, but that alone won’t stop the problem.

Among questions readers have asked: Whatever happened to prisoners picking up litter? Whatever happened to street cleaners in Huntington? Whatever happened to the signs that said litter, $500 fine? Are litter fines enforced? Whatever happened to civic pride?

Good questions.

END OF ARTICLE

 

what act of defiance leads people to toss paper cups, plastic bottles and other large items onto the city’s streets and alleyways?

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