Excuses, Excuses…

Have you ever been driving down the road when suddenly someone tosses their cigarette out the window? How about when a student on campus throws their cigarette on the ground when the disposal is a few feet away? These are just a couple of situations that add to the conflict between smokers and nonsmokers.
If you are a smoker who engages in behaviors like those above, do you ever ask yourself why you do it? Moreover, do those reasons really make sense?
Cigarette litter is a growing problem on campuses all across the nation and it can only be settled if smokers agree to follow one simple rule: discard your cigarettes properly.
One of the many excuses smokers use it that cigarettes are biodegradable and, therefore, don’t harm the environment. But use common sense; does the cigarette you discard today vanish any time soon? The answer is, “No.” It will probably be there tomorrow and next week too. In the mean time they are an eyesore.
So, what should you do with those old butts? Well, if you can’t walk to the nearest disposal, then you can improvise with such things as film cannisters, metal mint containers, or anything else that’s handy.
If you don’t have a container, put out your cigarette completely and throw it in the nearest trash can. Motorists, the choice is even easier for you – use your car ashtray.
Smokers who litter give a bad name to all smokers and make non-smoking activists even more delighted to increase bans, raise taxes and advertise the bad health effects of cigarettes.
As stated above, the problem is a serious one on college campuses. In fact, several universities have banned smoking not because of health issues, but because of litter. In these cases, considerate smokers lose out because of the behavior of their littering counterparts. Don’t use the excuse, everybody else does it because that hasn’t worked since kindergarten.
Millions of cigarettes are added to sidewalks, lawns, and roadways every day. When you throw down even one, you become part of the problem. If the trend doesn’t stop soon, those individual acts could lead to RWC joining the ranks of campuses that have made all on campus smoking off limits.