176 million pounds of cigarette butts are discarded each year in this country, but New York could become the first state to cut back on that waste, if a proposed recycling law wins approval in Albany. Assemblyman Michael G. DenDekker is pushing a bill that would create a statewide cigarette butt recycling program. He tells City Room, "There are two reasons to do it. One is to create jobs, the other is to clean our environment a little." But a butt-free environment doesn't come cheap.
To finance the ambitious program, DenDekker wants to levy a minimum one-cent deposit per cigarette, or 20 cents a pack. The man smoked for three decades, but now he's turned against is former smoking comrades, and says, "I’m sorry, but look at the amount of waste that cigarette butts cause in our cities."
The law would be the first of its kind in the U.S.; DenDekker got the idea from a constituent and the Google machine, which tells us that Chinese scientists have found that toxic chemical extracts from cigarette butts can be used to protect steel pipes from rusting. So the Chinese are already working on recycling butts over there—can the U.S. really afford a butt gap?
In other smoking news, the Health Department has launched a new anti-smoking television spot, which was adapted from a commercial originally produced in Australia by Quit Victoria. It's pretty slick, but it's driving us crazy that we can't pop that bubble wrap! We should probably just be grateful its not nearly as graphic as the Australia ad, which features a close-up testimonial from a woman with horrible mouth cancer. Watch both below if you need help quitting, or if you're just a non-smoker who wants an increased sense of smug self-satisfaction:
