Wednesday 27 June 2007

Butt Busting


Smoking is already banned in workplaces, and many smokers congregate on footpaths outside buildings. Often to get into a building you have to walk past a small gaggle of cancer-stick puffers and their smoky fugue. It can cause problems for air intake vents, which may recirculate smoke through air conditioning systems.
From July 1, there will be a ban on indoor smoking in pubs and clubs. City of Sydney staff and City Rangers will be out and about today accompanied by City of Sydney Butt Busters talking to people about the pollution caused by cigarette butt littering.

Squads of butt busters will target litter hotspots handing out 10,000 free personal ashtrays and encouraging business to join the City of Sydney's Clean Harbour Partners program where they can apply for a free wall-mounted ashtray valued at $350.

City of Sydney Acting CEO said: "We're reminding people that cigarette butts littering Sydney streets get washed down the stormwater drain and end up in Sydney Harbour or on Bondi Beach.
"What seems like a small piece of litter is the most commonly discarded litter item in NSW and is a massive environmental issue."

A City of Sydney study in the CBD, Kings Cross and Glebe found there were more than 15,000 butts thrown away every day - which is about 5.4 million butts potentially going straight into Sydney Harbour.
The City of Sydney has also warned that its plain-clothed City Rangers will step up their operations in late July targeting litterers.
The City Rangers have the power to issue $60 on the spot fines for littering and $200 on the spot fines for littering a lit cigarette butt.

Can you see a time when smokling will be banned in all but your own home? Even then, some people in apartments complain about cigarette smoke entering their space from others' smoking on balconies. It seems evident to me that restrictions on smokign will continue to increase. Which, as a non-smoker, I don't mind at all!

11 comments:

  1. I can smell people smoking a block away and it is a reminder how glad I am that I gave it up in 1996. However I did smoke of 47 years and ruined my lungs and my heart and my arteries. So those are not really cancer sticks people smoke. They are just big trouble. You might be surprised that my lung surgeon told me that only about 2%. The problems are those things like emphysema, asthma, heart disease and artery disease.

    We have banned smoking in public in this country or here where I live. It is not permitted.

    Where the US Army used to give me packages of cigarettes with my C-rations, and we used to take "Smoke breaks" every hour for 10 minutes, and people had to pick up cigarette butts for extra duty. All of that is gone like the glaciers melting up north.

    I like you picture today because it is a reminder of what I used to be hooked on.

    Abraham Lincoln
    Trapping the Japanese Beetle
    Brookville Daily Photo

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  2. Sally - I agree entirely. My wife and I hate it when we book a non-smoking hotel room and then they tell us there are none available, or when the smoking and non-smoking sections of restaurants are not well separated. That's set by local and state law in the US so there is a lot of variation, from a total ban in NYC to optional restaurant smoking areas in my somewhat backward state of Missouri.

    This wouldn't happen in your mild climate, but when my (and many other) office building went non-smoking several years ago, the rest of us identified a new cause of death from smoking: hypothermia. You should see them huddled out on the sidewalk when it is -10 C. Now that I think of it, that would make a good post.

    There is an awful lot of cultural variation in this, of course. Parts of Europe are just catching up to the idea. East Asia is still hopeless.

    There is a sort-of obscure Sydney reference in my post for Wednesday, which should go up in about six hours.

    Bob

    St. Louis Missouri Daily Photo Blog

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  3. In Italy the only good thing done by past gov was to forbid to smoke in *every* public space / place. What's surprising (and italians at first are surprised) is to see how law is strictly observed by everyone.

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  4. Nope, i don't mind at all either.

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  5. l'interdiction de fumer (dans les lieux publics , sauf bar, restaurant et dans certain stade) est en place depuis le debut de l'année, et je trouve cela bien. Maintenant, je trouve certain pays (comme les USA) un peu trop severe dans leurs politiques contre les fumeurs, car il y a meme des endroits où il est interdit de fumer dehors (si le fumeur respecte la propreté, sans jeter n'importe où son megot, cela ne me gene pas). Je suis sur qu'un jour, on va arriver à interdire de fumer dans sa propre maison, pour le bien du papier peint ;o).

    prohibition to smoke (in the public places, except bar, restaurant and in certain stage) is in place since the beginning of the year, and I find that well. Now, I find certain country (like the USA) a little too severe in their policies against the smokers, because there are same places where it is interdict to smoke outside (if the smoker respects cleanliness, without throwing anywhere its cigarette end, that does not obstruct me). I am on that one day, one will manage to prohibit from smoking in his own house, for the good of the wallpaper ;O).

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  6. I see that we have the same problem

    here the entry of the buildings are strewn with cigarette ends

    the ashtrays exist but that must too be tiring to crush its
    cigarette inside

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  7. Hi, Sally,

    I've been a lurker for a few months now and thought it was time to write and say hello. I found your site by clicking "next blog, next blog", as you do, and I now look forward to checking every day for your new photos. I live and work in Surry Hills, so many times I recognise the places in them. I've sent the link to relatives overseas too, so they can see sides of Sydney that don't make it to the tourist brochures.

    Thanks very much!

    Ellen

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  8. Hi Ellen! Lovely top know you are "out there" !

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  9. I love the fact that the ashtray has a 'smokers' sign on it.

    I would understand it as 'Discard unwanted smokers here'. Yeah get rid of them! No smokers, no cigarette butts, easy!!!
    Cheers

    Thanks for the answer regarding Napoleon!

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  10. This box at the back door is the biggest fire hazard where I work... Nearly once every month you can see smoke billowing out... Irony...

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  11. I don't believe for a minute that those boxes cost $350 apiece. Someone must be skimming off the top.

    Instead of being so intolerant of smokers, it would be more effective if support was offered to them. I sound like a smoker but I'm not. In truth, I'm from California where this militancy first took root.

    I enjoy your blog. Especially all the posts on outdoor art.

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