A tax on cigarette butts?

Just heard it on Capital Public Radio in Sacramento. 2 Culeeforneeya lawmakers have proposed a new tax on each pack to be used for clean-up of the ubiquitous butts....

I know some of you are smokers, and I'm sure none of you are like this, but for years Smokers were happily oblivious of the fact that their smoke was affecting other people. And many of them toss their butts wherever. Walk down the street and count how many butts you see? Why are they like that? Because they just don't see how throwing your cigarrette butts around is gross?

Bryant
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Some smokers are real slobs. I see people dump their ashtrays in the street. I see people flicking lit butts from moving cars (which starts at least one big fire here every year).

Butts wash into storm sewers and end up on the beaches. They don't break down for years.

it's about 4 miles in, and at an altitude of about 10,000 ft.- and there were cigarette butts all over the place.
they REALLY bug the piss out of me.

...they're totally biodegradable. Tobacco, paper, cardboard and *ahem* any other vegetable matter that might find its way in there.

:toast:

like many states currently do for cans and bottles? I live in MI and rarely do I see a can or bottle laying in the open. I smoke and would have no problem paying it.

Jay

In my state, the deposit on drink containers hasn't come anywhere near cleaning up the discards.

In fact, the deposit bottle law was touted as the most important welfare initiative of the Dukakis administration. Homeless people have routes they follow, especially on trash day, their shopping carts loaded to the gunwales with discarded cans and bottles. On a reasonably good day they can take in enough for three square meals.

If the homeless are picking up all the cans, then it seems like the discards are being cleaned up after all.

I think the bottle/can bill has been very effective. I'd like to see it extended to water bottles -- THOSE are the ones that become litter these days.

My point was that, in spite of the deposit law, there are still enough empties strewn about that an enterprising homeless person can still collect his daily bread.

I agree completely about the water bottles, and our various other exceptions. Only carbonated beverages are subject to the deposit. The worst IMHO are those juices that come in a glass bottle jacketed in styrofoam: the glass is much thinner than beer or wine bottles and pretty likely to shatter on impact with the pavement, and the styrofoam never decays.

I heard a story that the swing vote on the Massachusetts bottle bill was a legislator from Medford, the city just north of me, not fully urbanized but way too dense to count as suburban sprawl. This rep's son took him out on the street, and showed him all the broken glass that was lying in wait to puncture his bicycle tires. The rep, who up to that point had been against the bill, changed his vote.

Sadly, there is no political will to tighten the exceptions, even though that kid's tires are in just as much danger as they were back then. (Actually by now it would be that kid's own children.)

Oh, I see. I misunderstood.

:hi:

The Medford story wouldn't surprise me -- I lived there for a while, years and years ago. A strange town, like several different personalities in one "body." :)

institue it's deposit law? Also when was the last time you were in a state that did not have a deposit law? It usually sucks.

and within weeks, all the broken glass from bottles disappeared, because it was more fun to take a bunch of discards in at a nickel a pop than it was to break them. Shoot, take enough in and you could get a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of wine. The city got one hell of a lot cleaner very quickly. Trash cans on the street didn't overflow within a couple of hours. You could see the grass on the Common without having to look through soda cans and beer bottles in paper bags.

The store owners were the ones who bitched and moaned about it, but even they felt better when they learned THEY would also get a nickel a pop, since they got a dime for every can or bottle they turned in. That turned into some serious money, and they got used to having bags of cans and bottles in the back room.

The only place the bottle bill hasn't been a howling success is the far flung suburbs or the rural areas, since these areas aren't easily policed by poor folks on foot.

I don't know how it could be implemented logistically, and it would take some getting used to. I moved to MI 4 years ago, and I'm just now getting used to taking cans and bottles back.

How could it be implemented? There's no barcode. Just a physical count?

And rightly so. Without barcodes, I can only see a physical count being done on "returns". That would be a disgusting task for retailers to have to deal with, counting the "returns" that come in and having to store them pending disposal.
Unless they come up with machines (similar to the ones that accept cans and bottles) that pay out according to weight, rather than number??

at the point of return, but I'd be willing to bet that cans and bottles are much nastier. Before they had machines to do the deed, people actually took the returns in. :puke:

Jay

People get paid for the cans/bottles because they recycle them.

if they paid by weight, they'd have to compress them really well first, because people could soak the butts with water to increase the weight...and the goo that would be squeezed out of a hopper full of soggy ciggy butts is too foul to think about.

workout some sort of bar-code system. Perhaps even RFID (get used to it folks, it's out of the box). I'm sure a sorting and packing technology could be developed as well. Maybe something along the lines of the Coinstar machines at stores.

Jay

but I thought it might get too hot to use. A small barcode could probably be printed on the butts, but it would require overhaul of the complete tobacco industry.

the filter before packaging. That way they would only have to modify the the end of their line. The only thing I can think of that would prohibit RFID would be cost. I think the tech. could be worked out if someone really wanted this to happen.

Jay

Truth be known it is a regressive tax. Most smokers are lower class, and will hit them the hardest. Just another tax on the poor.

You argument doesn't fly.

Poor smokers are the least able to deal medical bills when thier health starts to get shitty due to smoking related illness.

It is a proven fact that tax increases encourage people to quit smoking.

A regressive tax that encourages people to quit smoking is a good thing.

If they enjoy smoking more power to them. But you arument fails as well, what about others who engage in risky behaivoir should we tax them as well? A tax on bungi jumping, or perhaps sex? Your whole "for the good of the poor" spiel does not cut it.

One of the reasons that I quit riding.
The law was probably written by helmet manufacturers to "protect me from myself".

I am always highly suspicious of laws passed "for our own good". Let me decide if i want my brains splattered on the street, it is our/my choice.

a helmet, I am very much in favor of helmet laws. My father died 3 months before my birth of massive head trauma that would have been lessened had he been helmeted. I was deprived of a real father because he wasn't wearing a brain bucket. They were not required in his state at the time.

Further, those who do survive accidents but receive head injuries in accidents drive up the cost of health care for us all, because caring for those with traumatic brain injury is far more expensive than basic health care.

It's not you we as a society want to protect, it's those around you that we wish to protect - the children and families and the tax base that will pay for the care for the permanently vegetative remnant.

Another major reason for me to retire from the biker scene was the fact that it had become time to become responsible (becoming a father).

Further, those who do survive accidents but receive head injuries in accidents drive up the cost of health care for us all, because caring for those with traumatic brain injury is far more expensive than basic health care

Tax payers are burden with these costs. There is a huge cost to society when we don't have safety laws, such as speed limits.

It's to compensate for the burden of health care costs that, we, as taxpayers pay.

That is crazy...what a waste of our politicians efforts if they are coming up with such ridiculous taxes. The taxes on cigarettes are already sky high and even though I don't smoke I can't say I agree with the fact that people who personally choose to smoke have to pay such an insane tax. I understand that they are affecting other people's lives as well but....aren't we all?

There is a correlation between smoking and increased health care costs. Hospitals get corporate welfare for unpaid medical bills, and there's medicaid, medicare as well as all other gov subsidized health insurance programs which are paid with our tax dollars.

...that a 1 pence tax on packets of chewing gum would raise enough money to completely clear up the problem of chewing gum stuck to pavements (which is apparently reaching epidemic proportions in some places). Sounds fair enough to me... an extra 1p wouldn't stop me buying gum (or anything else for that matter).

:D I'm a former cigarette addict, turned gum addict.

First off not all smokers are "slobs". 2nd The cost of smokes already went up 6 dollars a carton here in Colorado. 3rd if you are going to tax anything that ends up on the ground, then start taxing everything. A 10 minute walk around here could produce, grocery bags, soda cans, butts, newspaper, glass, etc, ect. Quit blaming all pollution on smokers. I got people telling me I can't smoke outside. Yeah right as soon as you quit driving outside I'll quit smoking outside.

.

The beaches in some states are like big ash trays. Disgusting.