Abingdon Police Department
For Immediate Release
Put Your Butt Where It Belongs!
If you smoke, please put your cigarette butts in the ash tray —not out
the car window, not in the gutter, not on the street, not on the lawn, and not
in our streams.
Cigarette filters
are made of cellulose acetate, a plastic that degrades slowly in the
environment. Filters are designed to trap carcinogenic chemicals that smokers
don’t want in their lungs and bloodstream. Littered butts are blown by wind and
storm water runoff into nearby water bodies. Cancer causing agents in the
filters leak into aquatic ecosystems, threatening the quality of the water and
aquatic life. Cigarette filters have
been found in the stomachs of fish and birds who mistake them for food.
According to Keep
America Beautiful, Inc., smokers litter
about 4.5 trillion cigarette butts yearly. Smoldering cigarette butts
tossed from car windows can easily ignite leaf piles and cause forest fires.
The current dry conditions greatly increase the risk of fire from tossing a
burning cigarette from a vehicle window.
Littering is
illegal, although most people are unaware of littering fines. Section 33.1-346 of the Code of Virginia
makes littering or dumping trash a Class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by up to 12
months in jail and/or a fine up to $2,500.
Further, Section 10.1-1143 of the Forestry Code makes it unlawful to
throw “any lighted smoking material” from a vehicle. This is a Class 2
misdemeanor violation, punishable by up to 6 months in jail and/or a fine up to
$1,000. (With either the Class 1 or Class 2 offense, community service
can take the place of jail time.)
People who litter
are showing their careless disregard for the property and well being of others
and the environment. Keep America Beautiful studies have shown that one of the
reasons litterbugs feel it is okay to litter is because they believe someone
else is paid to clean it up. That’s true. The Virginia Department of Transportation spends about $6.5 million a
year on litter control on nearly 57,000 miles of interstate, primary and
secondary roads. That’s $6.5 million of taxpayer money that otherwise could
have been spent on highway repair projects.
In addition to
what VDOT collects, Adopt-a-Highway volunteers pick up about 3 million bags worth
of trash annually from 14,000 miles of Virginia’s roads.
Please don’t litter. Put your butt where it belongs—in the ash tray.
