{"id":3580,"date":"2015-10-22T20:10:31","date_gmt":"2015-10-22T20:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3580"},"modified":"2015-10-22T20:10:31","modified_gmt":"2015-10-22T20:10:31","slug":"water-wheel-removes-4-million-cigarette-butts-from-baltimore-harbor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3580","title":{"rendered":"Water wheel removes 4 million cigarette butts from Baltimore Harbor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"waterwheelimage1-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Something that doesn’t get talked a lot about the scourge of tobacco is the littering and pollution problem caused by millions upon millions of cigarette butts being tossed aside into the environment.<\/p>\n

Cigarette butts are the No. 1 item by weight cleaned up on U.S. beaches. <\/a>Yeah, those little tiny cigarette butts end up weighing more than all the plastic bottles and beer cans they clean up on our beaches. Thirty-two percent of the trash picked up on U.S. beaches during beach clean-ups is cigarette butts.<\/p>\n

I thought this was an interesting story about an experimental water wheel<\/a> installed in Baltimore Harbor to help clean up cigarettes. According to this article from , over 160 tons of trash was removed by the contraption in one year — that included 97,000 bottles and 80,000 potato chip bags. Get this, it also included 4 million cigarette butts. It just dwarfs the other trash by sheer volume.<\/p>\n

\"10354833_1481414715423683_8612197271103461224_n\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is why I’m not especially sympathetic to people complaining about smoking bans in parks and beaches. If so many smokers didn’t use parks and beaches as an ashtray (and I get it, not all of them do it — but too many do it so ultimately smokers have no one to blame but themselves on this one.), then they wouldn’t bother with smoking bans on parks and beaches. These are more of a litter and pollution issue than a secondhand smoke issue. And these cigarette butts are made out of plastic and non-biodegradable. They clog up the environment for decades.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Something that doesn’t get talked a lot about the scourge of tobacco is the littering and pollution problem caused by millions upon millions of cigarette butts being tossed aside into the environment. Cigarette butts are the No. 1 item by weight cleaned up on U.S. beaches. Yeah, those little tiny cigarette butts end up weighing … Continue reading Water wheel removes 4 million cigarette butts from Baltimore Harbor<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[732,324],"tags":[733,673],"class_list":["post-3580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baltimore","category-cigarette-butts","tag-baltimore","tag-cigarette-butts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/waterwheelimage1-1.jpg?fit=730%2C448&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4hpEa-VK","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3433,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3433","url_meta":{"origin":3580,"position":0},"title":"Cigarettes not just bad for your health, they’re bad for the environment","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"August 17, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Something that gets overlooked a lot about cigarettes -- their effect on the environment. An organization called DoSomething.org, (Seems to be related to Truth.com) is highlighting the truly shocking and amazing impact cigarettes have on the environment -- mostly from the filters being tossed away on the ground. The group\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "beaches"","block_context":{"text":"beaches","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=570"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/20150805143138enprn255631-gtfo-litter-90-1438785098mr.jpg?fit=500%2C500&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4183,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=4183","url_meta":{"origin":3580,"position":1},"title":"Cigarette butts the No. 1 cause of beach pollution","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"September 7, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"This is why I have ZERO sympathy for smokers complaining about beach smoking bans. They really have no one to blame but themselves for smoking being banned on beaches. Here is an NBC story about the latest campaign to ban plastic straws. There's a good argument for banning plastic straws,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "cigarette butts"","block_context":{"text":"cigarette butts","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=324"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180824-oregon-cigarette-cleanup-al-1646_c1ffc2ed87fd0f3222c4f11621d4da7b.fit-2000w.jpg?fit=1200%2C770&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180824-oregon-cigarette-cleanup-al-1646_c1ffc2ed87fd0f3222c4f11621d4da7b.fit-2000w.jpg?fit=1200%2C770&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180824-oregon-cigarette-cleanup-al-1646_c1ffc2ed87fd0f3222c4f11621d4da7b.fit-2000w.jpg?fit=1200%2C770&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180824-oregon-cigarette-cleanup-al-1646_c1ffc2ed87fd0f3222c4f11621d4da7b.fit-2000w.jpg?fit=1200%2C770&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180824-oregon-cigarette-cleanup-al-1646_c1ffc2ed87fd0f3222c4f11621d4da7b.fit-2000w.jpg?fit=1200%2C770&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2381,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2381","url_meta":{"origin":3580,"position":2},"title":"Oregon set to ban smoking on all state beaches","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"July 26, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Wow, 360-plus miles of those famous Oregon beaches are set to become smokefree. The state earlier this year banned smoking in its state parks, and it considering adding state beaches to that ban (Almost all of Oregon's beaches are open and free to the public). If people are caught smoking\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "cigarette butts"","block_context":{"text":"cigarette butts","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=324"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/cigbuttsbeach_daniellerichardet.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/cigbuttsbeach_daniellerichardet.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/cigbuttsbeach_daniellerichardet.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/cigbuttsbeach_daniellerichardet.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/cigbuttsbeach_daniellerichardet.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2578,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2578","url_meta":{"origin":3580,"position":3},"title":"Group calls on UK to ban smoking on beaches","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"October 27, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 A number of entities -- states, parks and cities -- have banned smoking on beaches in the U.S. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this is primarily over the littering issues more than any secondhand smoke effects. 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It was a sign for \"Butts to Watts.\" I had never heard of this program. It's some partnership between CalTrans and some outfit actually called \"Cigarette Butt Services\" to take used\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "CalTrans"","block_context":{"text":"CalTrans","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=744"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/DSC01420.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/DSC01420.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/DSC01420.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/DSC01420.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/DSC01420.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":391,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=391","url_meta":{"origin":3580,"position":5},"title":"Quick updates on Kentucky, New York smoking ban","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"February 19, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's something you don't see every day. 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