For years now I have been seeing a horrific amount of cigarette butts littering the paths, verges, gutters and streets.
Besides being a blight on the environment, they also pose a fire risk. The federal government has informed me that they can not do anything and that it is a provincial problem.
After a lot of thought and talking to many smokers, perhaps I’ve hit on some of the solution. First off, we eliminate the filters on each cigarette. I know people will read that far and immediately think of health risks. However, the solution is to include with each package a cigarette holder that is designed to filter the cigarettes in the package.
Packages will change to a hard packaging to hold the holder and become a deposit and refund system similar to that used for drink bottles and cans. At 50 cents per package and 50 cents per holder, this would encourage people to change their habits and stop littering our streets. For those that do not, the excess funds could go into cost of fighting fires. Another benefit would be that those people who are willing to pick these off the streets and trails receive a decent recompense for their efforts in keeping our province clean. Most smokers I have talked to are keen on this concept.
Bob Richards
Penticton