honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, February 2, 2005

EDITORIAL
Get cigarette butts out of our beaches

Few beach scenes elicit more shrieks of disgust than a toddler playing with old cigarette butts left on the beach.

Despite the obvious health hazards and blight that cigarette butts pose on our beaches and parks, smokers continue to treat the outdoors as a communal ashtray.

It has to stop.

A bill in the Legislature to ban smoking on beaches and in parks deserves support.

As it is, butt tossers are scofflaws under Hawai'i law, which defines criminal littering as a case in which a person knowingly places, throws or drops litter on any public or private property.

The fact is, cigarette butts are simply not compatible with nature. The filters take years to decompose, and animals and small children who eat them — and they do — get sick and can even die from ingesting the nicotine and other toxins in discarded cigarettes.

They're also difficult to clean up, mired in sand.

We expect to hear objections, some along the lines that tourists, especially those from Japan, won't come to Hawai'i if they can't smoke wherever they please.

They said the same about banning smoking in restaurants, and few if any eateries have reported a drastic decline in customers. Smokers are more adaptable than the tobacco industry and its supporters will have us believe.

Let's reclaim the beaches and parks for healthy living. Isn't that what Hawai'i is all about?