Putting a Price on Pollution: Could a Deposit on Cigarette Filters Help Solve Health and Environmental Issues?

True or False?

Cigarette filters significantly reduce the health risks associated with smoking?

The Shocking Truth

If you're like me, you probably answered "True". Of course cigarette filters significantly reduce health risks! That's why there are filters on cigarettes in the first place, right? And we've all seen the brown stains no the filter end after someone has smoked, right? So the filters must be filtering out some gunk. Right?

Not so much.

Filters do trap the bigger particles of tar but... they also make the smoke "milder". Smokers tend to take bigger puffs on filtered cigarettes, which means that the smoke travels deeper into the lungs. And guess what... the smaller particles of tar are NOT trapped in filters and... they just travel deeper into the lungs. Think about it... if filters were stopping the toxins... wouldn't the end of the filter remain white? The bit that goes in the mouth? Just sayin...

So, the answer is... False... cigarette filters do not signficantly reduce the health risks associated with smoking. In the meantime... the environmental impacts of cigarette filters are HUGE.

Eco-Impacts

Cigarette filter fibres are made of cellulose acetate, a type of plastic that takes years to decompose. In the meantime, toxic substances absorbed from cigarette smoke leach into the environment. Not to mention the ones ingested by wildlife. We all know the impacts are bad... and if you don't, then read this link from the World Health Organization.

Cigarette butts are THE most littered man-made item in the world. Of the 5.6 trillion cigarettes smoked every year (ballpark estimate)... about 80% end up as litter... that is 4.5 trillion cigarette butts.

Oh, and let's not even mention the wildfire risks associated with discarded cigarette butts.

Alternatives

There are different options to today's cigarette filters...

1. No Filters

One option is to produce cigarettes without any filters. Today's cigarette filters are not a necessary component of cigarettes and their removal would eliminate the health and environmental issues associated with them. People could use cigarette holders or simply smoke unfiltered cigarettes. Of course, there would still be health risks associated with smoking.

2. Biodegradable Filters

Developing filters made from biodegradable materials, such as plant-based fibers or paper, could help reduce the environmental impact. These filters would break down more quickly in the environment and reduce plastic pollution.

3. Cigarette Holders

Cigarette holders are reusable devices that can be used to hold a cigarette while smoking. They were widely used in the early 1900s and were stylish fashion accessories. While cigarette holders don't filter the smoke, they do reduce direct contact between the lips and the cigarette, which may help reduce staining of teeth and fingers. Some cigarette holders are even being marketed as having built-in filters.

4. Reduced-Harm Products

Another approach is to promote reduced-harm products like electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) or heat-not-burn devices. While these are not without their own health concerns, they are generally considered less harmful than traditional cigarettes and do not use the same types of filters.

5. Filter Disposal Solutions

If traditional filters continue to be used, providing better disposal solutions for filters could help mitigate environmental issues. Encouraging proper disposal and recycling of filters can reduce litter and pollution. If all of the cigarette filters actually ended up in a appropriate disposal stream, the world would be a better place.

But... given that the city of Vancouver has an estimated 450,000 cigarette butts being littered on city streets EVERY DAY... the issue comes back to human actions. And we all know how well humans change their habits.

6. Fines

Some jurisdictions (e.g. the US state of Washington) have significant fines for littering cigarette butts ($1000). But you actually have to catch the offender in the act, and the odds of that are low, unless you had an army of bylaw officers standing around.

7. Deposit System

There is one group in Europe that is suggesting the introduction of a filter deposit system, similar to what some jurisdictions do with drink containers.

They suggest introducing a 20 cent deposit on each cigarette filter (so 4 Euros/package). A pocket ashtray would be issued with every pack of cigarettes. Customers who returned the full pocket ashtray along with the empty cigarette package would get their deposit money back.

The group suggests that all of this could be funded by the tobacco industry and overseen by the state.

It's an intriguing option that might encourage habit change in smokers. There would also be an incentive for people to pick up the butts and cigarette packages that litter city streets, similar to bottles and cans that end up on the street.

Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada suggested a filter deposit system back in 2014... but it would appear that nothing has moved on that.

8. Recycle by Mail

And then we have a final option... where you can recycle your cigarette butts by mail. Yep, you read that right. Unsmoke has partnered with TerraCycle in Canada to sponsor a FREE program whereby you put all of your butts into a container, print out a mail label and ship it off to TerraCycle.

I suppose this might be good for... businesses? Who have a smoking area for staff? Or maybe a really, really conscientious smoker will save all of their butts at home, pack them up and send them off. Maybe. They also take tobacco pouches, rolling papers, the foil thing from inside the cigarette package, and the exterior plastic wrap.

Businesses can also register to become a Drop off Point, where people can bring their smoking materials. I had a look and there aren't a heck of a lot of them in BC yet. Although Tofino and Ucluelet have gone to town with this and have dozens of places that accept these used smoking materials. 

Although... as an Airbnb host, who often hosts guests who smoke outside... we could collect their butts and mail them off to TerraCycle. We already have to pick the butts out of the can-of-wet-sand ashtray soooo... why not just stockpile those and send it off. Might just do that.

Conclusion

The thing with many of these "solutions" is that they rest on the consumer or the smoker. It's up to us to recycle plastic packaging that seems to have proliferated everywhere... even though many admit that the recycling system is broken. It's up to us to figure out what to do with cigarette butts. It's up to the smoker to decide whether or not to toss that butt or save it and then mail a collection back to TerraCycle. Or... in an age where Decision Fatigue is rampant... just toss the thing out the car window and be done with it. Or drop it on the sidewalk and let it be someone else's problem.

Surely some responsibility rests on the corporations that take the easy route, or the profitable route, to deal with the problems that THEY have created. Us collecting cigarette butts from our Airbnb guests might not save the world... but it is a small step.

Further Reading

Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada - A Provincial Deposit – Return Program for Cigarettes

Initiative for the Establishment of a Universal Deposit System for Filter Cigarettes and their Packaging

NIH - The ‘filter fraud’ persists: the tobacco industry is still using filters to suggest lower health risks while destroying the environment

WHO raises alarm on tobacco industry environmental impact

Health without filters: the health and environmental impacts of cigarette filters - PubMed (nih.gov)

The ‘filter fraud’ persists: the tobacco industry is still using filters to suggest lower health risks while destroying the environment - PMC (nih.gov)

The dirty truth about cigarette filters | CNN

Cigarette butts are toxic plastic pollution. Should they be banned? (nationalgeographic.com)

Consumers' knowledge and beliefs about the safety of cigarette filters | Tobacco Control (bmj.com)

Plastic straw ban? Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash (nbcnews.com)

Cigarette Butts: Toxic Plastic Pollution | OceanCare

The Misunderstood Rule of the Woods - Leave No Trace

Sooo... we had a gorgeous warm, sunny weekend a few weeks ago Folks were out in the woods and parks in full force.

Actually, I didn't see them there... I just came across their remains. Well, not "their" remains... but the stuff that they left behind.

There's a rocky bluff up by the local lake and it's a popular hangout  for the younger crowd in the warmer months, particularly on the weekends. Last summer, I made it a regular weekend stop because there always seemed to be remains...

On that sunny weekend, I decided to walk through the woods to the bluff on Sunday morning because it is a beautiful spot, overlooking the lake with the mountain in the background. I can get some gorgeous photographs there...

As I came to the top of the bluff, I had a sense of what I would find down by the shore. Off to the side of the trail, down the slope was a spilled bag of beer and cooler cans. I decided to pick them up on my way out...

And... sure enough... once I got closer to the water... scads of garbage - towels, chip bags, drink cups, pizza boxes and various miscellaneous crap. Clearly, the younger folk had a good time here Saturday evening. They just neglected to clean up after themselves.

There were a couple of early fishermen down by the water, and one of them called out that he had cleaned up a similar mess on Saturday morning. And yet, here was more. Sad. Disgusted.

I didn't have a large garbage bag in my pack, just a regular plastic bag. I debated my options. It was a good 15 minutes back to the truck... And there was a lot of stuff there...

In the end, I used one of the towels as a make-shift tote and gathered everything together. It was bulky, unwieldy and moderately heavy... damp towels aren't lightweight. But... I made it back to the trail head and shoved everything into the garbage can there.

I had several debates with myself during this process:

Tossing the Towels

Should I have taken the towels home, washed them and then donated them to the SPCA? That would seem to be the most eco-friendly thing to do and yet... we are living in the time of Covid and I didn't really want to bring this pile of damp towels back to our home. I took the route of least resistance and just dumped them... but I felt bad doing that.

Not My Monkeys, Not My Circus

Should I have just left the mess there for the "kids" to come back and clean up on their own? Am I just enabling this sort of mess-making by cleaning up after them? After all, it's not my mess... not my job to clean up after slovenly youth!

I decided "No"... if these kids were raised right by their parents... they'd already know that they should clean up after themselves. This isn't so much about the youth... it's about the parents...

Some people excuse this sort of behaviour by saying that it's hard to clean up after a party in the dark, particularly when the scoundrels are drunk as skunks. Perhaps... but the bigger question then is... if they are too drunk to clean up after themselves... who's driving everyone home? And who had the common sense to pack all the cans into a bag? Admittedly, a bag that got dropped down a slope and left for someone else to clean up...

Trash Begets Trash

But here's the thing... they've done studies on trash and litter. If it starts to accumulate somewhere... say along the side of the road or at a park, guess what? People apparently feel it's OK to toss their own litter and trash there. This is why graffiti gets painted over quickly... if it stays up, it tells other graffiti-ers that it's OK to add their own creations to that building or bridge. Cities have to stay on top of graffiti... and it's the same with trash. And there is no way cities can stay on top of the amount of trash that gets routinely tossed along roadways and trails... It's up to civic-minded citizens to step up... that's you and me folks...

If you go out into the woods or a city park or the beach... there are some rules of the trail that you might have heard of...

Pack it In, Pack It Out

There is a pretty well-known rule of the hiker crowd... if you pack it in, you pack it back out. This applies equally well to the folks walking in city parks and local woodlands. What it means is this...

If you bring a granola bar to eat on your walk... you pack out your granola bar wrapper. You don't just drop it on the trail. This is why seamstresses gave us pockets! 

If you bring your cup of Timmies along for the walk... you carry that cup the whole length of your walk. You don't just toss it in the woods. Drink cups are lined with a thin film of plastic and that stuff never ever decays. Trust me... I've seen the various stages of disintegration of a Timmies cup... the plastic liner is still lying in the woods months after you tossed your Timmies cup there. Or Starbucks cup... or McDonald's cup.

If you scoop your dog's poop while on the trail, good for you!!! Excellent... but that's only the first step. You have now committed to carrying that poop bag the entire way back to your vehicle... or the nearest garbage can, whichever comes first...  And no, a hollow stump is NOT a garbage can. I can't tell you how many poopy bags I've found in the woods, tossed off the trail by some half-assed "responsible" dog owner.

Leave No Trace

This is another well-known rule of the woods, particularly the back-packing crowd. It includes the "pack it in, pack it out" rule along with a few others. But here's the thing... it's not just about me or you leaving no trace... it's about taking it a step farther and leaving a negative trace.

Great that you tuck your granola bar wrapper into your backpack or pocket. But now... here's the question... what do you do when you see a granola bar wrapper on the trail? It's not your wrapper... not your monkeys... not your circus. What do you do?

Leave it for the owner to come back and clean up?? Come on... that ain't never gonna happen! Maybe they dropped it on purpose... maybe it fell out of their pocket by accident... Doesn't matter, they ain' coming back for it.

Leave it for the park patrol to clean up? There ain't no park patrol!

Actually there is... you are the park patrol. You saw the wrapper on the ground... now it's up to you to leave no trace. Just pretend it's your granola bar wrapper that fell out of your pocket accidentally on your last walk. Pick it up and put it in your pocket or pack or perhaps... the plastic bag that you could start carrying to collect trash along the trail...

Leave it Better than You Found It

Which leads me to the last rule of the trail... leave it better than you found it. Yes, you can be responsible for your own trash but... we are all citizens of a larger community, a larger world. We are all caretakers of the Earth... of our forests and trails and waterways. Someone said I could have just left the garbage for the "kids" to clean up. Maybe... but in that time, the wind might have blown some of it into the lake where it would drift around, perhaps harming fish or birds in the process. We all know that six-pack rings are NOT eco-friendly.

Sooo... even though these aren't my monkeys or my circus... I can see that I will need to be stocking my pockets and pack with plastic grocery bags. And if you see a person on the trail carrying a bag of garbage or cans... give them a smile and a thank you! And... consider carrying our own stash of bags...

Post-Script

Soooo... I did a pass through of the bluff on my Monday morning walk and found a good two dozen cans and bottles littering the rocks. Not much actual garbage though. I was prepared with a number of bags and came out of the woods with a half-bag of garbage and a bag and a half of cans...

Waste Not, Want Not at Christmas

The average Canadian tosses out 50 kg of garbage during the holiday season. That's 25% more than normal. Which means... we toss out about 12 kg of pure Christmas waste. Which, for those of us who are not quite metricized with weights yet... about 25 lbs of Christmas waste. That's an awful lot of wrapping paper...

When I was a kid, my Mom had us save everything! She grew up during the war and learned "waste not, want not" from her parents. At Christmas, we'd take a paring knife and carefully slice under the tape wrapping each gift. No wild tearing of wrapping paper. We would then carefully take off the bow and the name tag (which was taped to one of the bow's tails). We would then fold the wrapping paper carefully and set it aside. Paper went into one brown paper bag. Bows went into another. Ribbons went into another. Name tags into another. All saved for next year. We had the most organized Christmas unwrapping you've ever seen! And we hardly ever had to buy reams and reams of wrapping paper. We would just sort through the old paper from previous years and find a size that worked for the current wrapping project. Eventually, of course, the paper would die but by that point, it gone through at least five, possibly ten Christmases.

Nowadays... things are different... there's only my partner and I and we tend to have different Christmas wrapping systems. My partner is more in the gift bag with tissue paper camp. Whereas I tend to be more in the wrapping paper camp. We do still try to unwrap carefully but... it's not always possible. Although... the gift bags are reused from year to year. And we do try to reuse the tissue paper as well. On top of that, we generally only buy gift bags and rolls of gift wrap from the thrift store and never new. Same with bows and ribbons. It seems like a waste to buy new wrapping paper that will only have a few days of glory before it is torn to shreds and tossed in the trash.

Which got me thinking... what exactly is recyclable when it comes to Christmas waste? The list is shorter than you might think.

Bows

We all have these in our house. We have a whole shoe box full of them. But we never really use them. They don't mail all that well... And for our own presents we tend not to use the bows. They just leave a ripped paper spot where the tape was used to hold them down. And be-bowed presents don't stack all that well.

And they are most definitely not recyclable. Once these bows die (too bedraggled to be reused), they have only one final destination... the garbage.

Instead of a ribbon... maybe put a sprig of cedar or fir on the gift... or a flattish Christmas ornament... All sorts of different ways to spruce up a gift that don't need plastic...

Ribbons

We have another box full of spools of various ribbons. Different colours, sizes, textures. All of them are made from some form of plastic. None of them are recyclable. And if they end up in the recycling stream, they can stop the whole production line when they get tangled around the machinery. Every gotten a string tangled in your vacuum cleaner roller brush? Or around your weed whacker? You know what I mean. Ya gotta stop and spend five or ten minutes trying to untangle that rats's nest. Now scale that up to a recycling facility. Not fun.

Back when I was a kid, we tended to use fabric ribbons, satin or velvet or tule that could be untied and reused over and over again. But fabric ribbons tend to be a bit limp... not like those vibrant plastic curls you get when you pull a ribbon over the edge of a scissor... Those are so much more exciting and sparkly! Not.

We don't really use ribbons anymore except for some mailed presents... but even there... I'm thinking it might be better to ditch the ribbons completely and swap it out for rafia or twine or something equally rustic. Heck, maybe even some satin ribbon from the thrift store! The thing I've noticed is... if we have it in the house, we'll use it. So maybe the trick is to  get rid of it... donate it to the thrift store and swap it out for something more eco-friendly. If you're looking to buy plastic ribbon... don't but it new... go check out the thrift store. Odds are they'll have reams of the stuff.

Wrapping Paper

Not all wrapping paper is paper. Nope, some of it is plasticized and that stuff is most definitely NOT recycable. Here's the no-go list:

• no glitter - none. Not on the paper. Not on the ribbons. Not on the gift cards. As anyone who has used glitter knows... that s*%t gets everywhere!
• no velvet - I thought velvetized paper went out of fashion in the 70s but... apparently not.
• no foil - if you can see vague reflections of yourself in your shiny wrapping paper, odds are it has foil in it or on it. Not recyclable. It's not aluminum foil. It's plastic foil. If you crumple it and it doesn't stay crumpled... it's plastic.
• no holographic material - plastic...
  

Sooo... what's the solution? Plain old gift paper - made out of 100% paper CAN be recycled.

Best place to buy gift wrap... your local thrift store. They usually have rolls and rolls of the stuff and odds are you can find something that fits your theme.

For a few years, my partner and I just bought white wrapping paper and used different colours of ribbons and bows on it. That looked really sharp but... that means using ribbons. Although it would work with fabric ribbons too.

I'm thinking that brown paper tied with string and maybe stencilled with some cool ink stamps would look really nice too. And then a sprig of evergreen with a Christmas ornament or something.

As for us... we are using up our stash of wrapping paper (no glitter, foil, velvet, etc) but I think we are going to be making a pact not to buy anymore wrapping paper. Or ribbons. Or bows.

I know I said up there that actual paper wrapping paper (!) can be recycled but... there are caveats. Winnipeg, for example, says no to wrapping paper because the ink is too intense and it's too hard to get it out. So check with your local municipality...

Oh... and tissue paper can be reycled as well, as long as it is straight-up tissue paper with no extras. No glitter. No sparklies.

If wrapping gifts is your thing, fly at 'er! Just keep the above in mind...

Gift Bags

Most gift bags are plasticized. Even if they look like they're paper... unless you can tear it easily... it likely has a plastic coating either on the inside or outside. Which means most gift bags are NOT recyclable.

A better option is pure paper bags. I was looking online and am starting to see brown paper bags with handles and Christmas decorations. The question then becomes... what are the bag decorations made of? Any glitter... not recyclable. Any velvet? Or anything 3-dimensional? Not recyclable.

I'm also seeing some gift bags that might look like fabric (they aren't like the regular stand up bags but more flowy) but are really foil or some variation of plastic. Not recyclable...

But... gift bags made from real fabric, with real cord (not plastic ribbons) are a definite alternative. If I was a sewer... er... a seamstress... I'd be making gift bags out of fabric from the thrift store. Fabric bags can last forever and are washable and reusable. Just not recyclable...

Gift Cards

We haven't bought new holiday gift cards for years. I just trot down to the thrift store around Christmas time and stock up on different cards. They're usually $0.25 each and I know that my money is going to a good cause.

As for whether or not they are recyclable... some are and some aren't. If you read the no-go list for gift wrap above... it's the same with gift cards. Musical gift card? Not recyclable. Glitter or foil or velvet or three dimensional doo-dads and weird textures? Not recyclable. Although... you likely can tear off the paper half that is recyclable.

Christmas Trees

Real or fake? That is the enduring question. Basically... either one is not great on the environment. The best option would be to have a real tree in a pot that you then plant in your backyard. If you already have a fake tree, then keep it and make it last for at least 20 years. If you get a new fake tree every few years, you'd be more eco-friendly if you just got a real tree every year. Or... go down to the thrift store, odds are they have a number of fake trees on display... and you can save one from being landfilled. If you are going to get a real tree... make sure you don't drive a long distance to get the tree and/or buy it from a local Christmas tree farm (not one of those Home Depot trees that come via rail from across the country!).

Our fake tree is about 15 years old and still going strong. It's a tall, skinny tree with faux fir, spruce and pine twigs - a very unnatural combination! But it works and we like it. So we'll keep it. If it ever dies... we'll likely go with either a thrift store tree or a local Christmas tree farm one. Or maybe cut our own under the power lines... Oh, and just to be clear, fake Christmas trees are not recyclable, too many different plastics and metals all tangled together...

If you do get a real tree, for goodness sake, dispose of it responsibly. Most municipalities have some form of real Christmas tree recycling options. Bring it to a central collection point and they will be chipped to form mulch.

But here's the thing... tinsel is NOT mulchable. If your tree looks like this (pic at right)... with tinsel tossed willy nilly everywhere... you might want to reconsider your use of tinsel. Because odds are, you won't be able to get every single piece of tinsel off of the tree before you take it to be mulched...

Growing up, we always had tinsel (or lametta) on the tree but it was hung in small bunches on the branch tips, the final touch to decorating the tree. At the end of the Christmas season, we carefully gathered up every bunch of tinsel and placed it in organized bundles in paper towel, to be reused the following year. And the year after that... and the decade after that. I still have our childhood bunches of tinsel (decades later). The stuff lasts forever! Except... we never use it because cats and tinsel do NOT mix... So, the tinsel is going into the thrift store donation box where hopefully someone else will use it... in a sustainable and eco-friendly way.

I'm not even going to touch on Christmas tree decorations. So many of them nowadays are plastic. We have quite a stash of vintage Christmas balls that are made from thin glass... love them.

We don't buy new Christmas tree decorations every year, but just keep reusing what we have. We don't have themed Christmases or any particular colour that we go for. In fact... you don't need a lot to make a cute tree...

We spent one winter on Salt Spring Island at a vacation rental (our five month foray to see if my partner could survive a rainy West Coast winter). We got our tree from under the power lines (a first for my partner), put it in a pail with rocks and decorated it with strings of popcorn and rose hip berries. We scrounged some bits of holly, baby's breath and shreds of arbutus bark. And tucked a few small stuffed animals into the branches.

It was the cutest tree ever and we still remember it, and the whole adventure that went with it, very fondly.

We don't have to buy into the Christmas marketing fiasco... we can choose to go simple and rustic. It's usually cheaper and better for the environment.

Highway Litter Picker-upper

I remember what it used to be like up north when the snow would melt in the spring. You'd be driving along the highway and see scads of litter emerging from the snowbanks and getting blown about by spring winds. Lots of plastic bags, coffee cups and of course, pop and beer cans. But at some point, magically it seemed, the litter would all disappear. How did that happen? Was their a litter fairy out there somewhere? Or was it just the highways department who came along and cleaned hundreds of kilometres of highway? I'm still not sure...

What I do know is that some provinces have an Adopt-a-Highway program. Every spring, and/or periodically through the warmer months, groups of volunteers go out with gloves, bags and reflective vests and pick up garbage along stretches of the highways. In Alberta, you can even get a sign which stakes your claim to that section of highway. It's a cool concept, and I even participated in one highway cleanup a few years (decades ago).

I was visiting a friend in Vanderhoof who belonged to a church group. That weekend, their group was slated to do a spring clean-up of a stretch of Highway 27 heading to Fort St. James. We got our gloves and bags and got organized. I think each person got a kilometre of highway and we got dropped off in little clumps. The roadside was mostly grass, bordered by farm fields. And there was a tonne of garbage in the grassy verge. It doesn't look like that much when you're whipping by at 100 kph but... when you're trudging along on foot... wow. There were lots of tires, empty oil/windshield washer/coolant containers, plastic bags, coffee cups, beer cans, pop cans, cigarette packages, candy wrappers, potato chip bags, etc, etc.

The process of bending and picking gave me lots of time to think... was all of this litter intentional throw-away stuff? Or had it blown out of the back of somebody's pick-up truck? A mixture of both quite likely. I'm not exactly sure why drivers feel it's OK to fill up their coolant/windshield washer/oil and then leave the 4 litre container along the side of the road... but they do. It's a rather odd attitude... "let someone else deal with it".  Maybe their mother always cleaned up behind them at home? Or is it just a flagrant disregard for the environment? Or just a "It's just one container..." attitude. Not sure... although some studies say it's a combination of carelessness and laziness. People don't believe that littering has any real consequence... hard to imagine given how ugly litter looks, particularly when it is washed into storm drains and out into the ocean where its harmful affects on marine life are well documented.

I have also learned, that in the 1960s and 1970s, it was quite common for people to toss their litter out their car windows and not give it a second thought. It was socially acceptable to be a litter bug... at least in some areas. But in the 1970s and 1980s... that all changed and littering became less and less socially acceptable. Sooo... is it the older people who are still set in their ways who are the main mobile litterbugs?

Apparently not... the UK did a study on mobile littering and found that one in seven drivers admitted to throwing trash out of their vehicles (that's 14% of drivers). There were five main reasons given for littering while driving:

• force of habit (25%),
• preventing clutter in the vehicle (21%),
• they couldn't stop on the road (20%),
• improving their concentration while driving (20%)
• keeping the vehicle from smelling (19%).

As for the age spread... 25% of drivers between the ages of 18-34 were deliberate litterers compared to only 5% of drivers over the age of 55. Huh, go figure... And... a study from the US showed that 70-75% of litterers (deliberate or accidental) were male. It would seem that young male drivers are the worst offenders...

Distressing as it was to see how much litter lay along the side of the highway north of Vanderhoof... picking up all that litter was very, very satisfying. I can't really put it into words... it just felt really good at a very deep, spiritual level (and not just cause it was a church group).

Here in our city, I've noticed that a team of people in ATVs clean up the garbage along the highway where it passes through town. I think they are from the highway maintenance contractor so our highways generally look pretty ship-shape most of the time. Not getting the snowfall that the north gets, also means that our highway litter is easily pickable year-round.

A highway in Vietnam with roadside litter.

It really doesn't bear thinking about what it could look like without regular litter collection. A few years back, my partner and I went to SE Asia and they don't have groups of volunteers or highway maintenance crews picking up litter along their roadsides. And it shows. There is a tonne of garbage along the roads, all of that will eventually flow or blow into streams and rivers. No wonder that so many of the waterways are covered with a floating scum of plastic. We were at one beach and it's gross to swim in the water and continually encounter floating plastic bags and other oddments.

And... it's not just a SE Asia problem. I read an article the other day about a group in Scotland that got fed up with decades worth of accumulated garbage along a stretch of road called the Lang Whang. Sounds Asian... but it's just Scottish for a "long leather bootlace"...

Ultimately, however, picking up litter along the highways and biways of our fair province isn't really addressing the problem. It's a bandaid solution and the problem will really only get addressed when people take responsibility for their litter. Having walked several kilometres of that northern highway a few years back, picking up trash, gave me a new appreciation for litter. I don't toss anything out of my vehicle... not even apple cores (they are bad for wildlife...).

Litter Pick up Ahead sign

I had a poke around the web on the psychology of littering and... it appears that two thirds of the issue is environmental or contextual and only one third rests with the individual.

Basically, if there is already a lot of litter on the ground, people feel it's OK to litter. So the trick is to provide the right bins in the right places. Which makes sense in a downtown core but, in our semi-rural, suburban area... I know of only three bins: two by bus stops and one by the convenience store. And... those bins don't really help the drivers who are "losing" their candy wrappers and beer cans in the grassy verges. Nor does it help the drivers who stop at the community mailboxes to pick up their mail and decide that it is also the perfect time to empty their vehicle of their McDonald's take-away wrappers... or empty their ash tray... or toss the unwanted junk mail on the ground. Maybe if our city had garbage bins at every community mailbox? Which would make taxes go up because not only do they have to be installed, they also have to be emptied... Or maybe everyone could just take their garbage home with them.

I once read that Disneyland/Disneyworld is pristine... not a speck of trash or litter anywhere. Apparently they did a study and watched how far people would walk while holding a piece of trash. About 30 feet. So, guess how far apart the garbage bins are spaced at Disneyland/world? Yep... 30 feet. And... every Disney employee, from the executives on down, will pick up any piece of trash they see lying on the ground. Too bad that doesn't work in the real world...

Maybe if every school kid followed a piece of litter all the way to the ocean where it ended up choking some seal's stomach. Or they had to do a stint of litter pickup along the highways. Or maybe if we learned how much material/energy/water/gasoline goes into that candy wrapper... the contents of which get eaten in five minutes (or less) and then... is tossed.

Caring for Alberta Highways

I had a look and all four of the western provinces (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and BC) have Adopt-a-Highway programs... It used to be, when I participated decades ago, that the volunteer group would receive compensation in the form of dollars/pound of garbage collected. But, that is no longer the case. Although, volunteer groups do get to keep any cans/bottles, which, in some provinces, can give you some serious cash.

British Columbia's program also has the added benefit of encouraging groups to report invasive weeds when they encounter them along their stretch of highway. It's really a win-win scenario... although BC says there are "14 Reasons to Adopt a Highway in BC". BC even lists available sections of road for volunteer groups to adopt (none in our area, alas).

Of course, it doesn't just land on the schools... it lands on parents as well. If a quarter of adults aged 18-34 throw trash out of their vehicles... what message does that send to the children in the car with them? I don't have kids... but when our nieces and nephews come to visit... they're going to not just see us avoiding throwing trash out of the vehicle... they are going to now see us actively picking up litter wherever we go.