Cigarette butts are a blight on the environment. According to EarthDay.org, they account for the most abundant form of plastic waste on the planet, with around 4.5 trillion estimated to be polluting our streets and green spaces.
If you live in an apartment block, you may encounter them daily through no fault of your own. Disrespectful neighbors might be stubbing out their cigarettes on communal footpaths or even throwing them over balconies, and there's often not a lot you can do to stop them.
One Redditor had this exact problem, noting that their neighbor living above them was disposing of cigarette butts around plants near their property.
"My top neighbor does this instead of using the cigarette bin available on his floor," they said, posting a picture of the discarded ends among the plant bed in the r/awfuleverything subreddit. "Sometimes they stay burning on top of the plant."
In addition to the presence of burning cigarette butts making the area far less pleasant to live in, they can also do serious damage to plants. That's not to mention the harm the plastics contained in the butts can do to the soil, potentially leaching toxic chemicals that can kill flora and make it harder to grow new things.
As EarthDay.org observed, cigarette ends can contain materials like arsenic, lead, and nicotine, which can all be detrimental to soil, human, and animal health.
The non-degradable butts could also be ingested by small creatures or pets. The plastic will likely remain in their stomachs if they aren't passed through their system, which could cause sickness from the chemicals or stop them from digesting food properly — and there is also a serious choking hazard.
Redditors were infuriated by what they saw, and some users had creative — albeit potentially ill-advised — solutions.
"I have this problem too, but I just launch them back at his house," they said.
"Collect all of them and leave them on his doorstep," another suggested.
Notable developments have been made to deal with cigarette butts, including using mushrooms to digest them or turning them into material for roads — even crows are getting involved in the clean-up.
But until the time when these solutions become more widespread, extinguishing cigarettes and then putting the butts in designated trash cans is the way to go to keep flowerbeds and streets free from this pollution.
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