Those street cigarette ashtray bins - always on fire!

[Hindley Street Alley]

My rant:

I'm getting annoyed constantly by these street cigarette ashtray bins (the metal tubes with a little 'butt out' tray at the top, which people are then supposed to put their non-lit butts into).

The reason I'm annoyed is because no-joke, every second one of these is billowing huge amounts of smoke at any given time... the smell is putrid and more unhealthy than cigarettes (as its all the foam butts that are burning)... I'm even a part time smoker and I'm fuming at these things - actually starting to hate them.

I have no problem with smokers in most ways, like I said, being a part-time one myself.. but what I have a real problem with is stupid smokers who can't get it through their thick nicotine-filled heads that they need to actually put the cigarette out before putting it in one of these bins... How do we idiot proof these things? Do people need training to use one? If people aren't smart enough to use one of these things then they should have to carry their butts around with them all day... I mean seriously it takes about 3 seconds to make sure your butt is put out, which by the way, is one of the crucial steps in the whole damned activity.

I pity the employers of these people.... anyway so they either need to be trained to use these devices (no one is going to be bothered training imbecilic people)... or these bins need to be even more idiot proof... because I'm really incredibly sick of all these smoke-billowing-cigarette-filter bins. Really (*%&ing sick of them.

Probably an improvement in design would be best. Ahhh, feels good to vent.

[monotonehell]

I was about to post something similar. I see one (or more) of those things on fire every other day - also rubbish bins.

It's not ALL smokers, but some of them who shouldn't be allowed to carry fire. There there's the majority, not all of them, who litter.

Here's the list of idiot things people do with their cigarettes:
* Put their still lit cigarette into a bin. Thanks for trying not to litter, but put it out first.
* Drop their cigarette on the ground and stomp it out. Thanks for putting it out, but don't litter, asshat. (photograph any footpath in Adelaide and it will be strewn with butts and gum spots).
* Drop their still it cigarette on the footpath. I saw this just last week, a guy dropped his half smoked, still lit cigarette on the ground, and then took three more steps to a bin to throw a tiny piece of paper in it. Seriously- what are these people's thought processes? I pray for pools of petrol dropped from a passing car

I was going to suggest funding roving gangs of thugs who would issue on the spot "corrections" to anyone who dropped their cigarette or gum on the street.


I'm SO sick of seeing our new pavement in Adelaide become ruined within a few weeks by gum and ciggy butts. As well as things on fire.

/rant

[Wayno]

Perhaps expand the role of Traffic Parking Inspector into covering gum/ciggy offences? certainly a money spinner for the Council. These Inspectors are on the beat already, and it would improve their job image too!

Also it would bring an embarrasment factor onto the culprits. There's little embarassment associated with parking tickets. People are normally driving away before they notice it over their dashboard. Instead, gum/ciggy infringements could be issued with a Town Crier approach - oh the humanity! Might be a nice change for the Inspectors too - as it stands they only hear the delayed & distant wailing from their recent 'clients'.

[mooshie]

the government has introduced legislation as of March next year that cigarettes will be more likely to go out when left unattended. They have changed the paper so that if someone is not continually sucking on it, it will go out.

That might help...

[monotonehell]

"Cigarette licences" only issued after an intensive safety and civil responsibility course, and cigarettes with the user's name printed on the filter -coupled with fines for each but found in the wrong place might help.

[Aidan]

A much better solution is to automatically extinguish them.

[Hooligan]

we could offer a 1 cent deposit on ciggerate butts, if you pick them up up you would be rewarded.

[Nathan]

we could offer a 1 cent deposit on ciggerate butts, if you pick them up up you would be rewarded.

People foraging through bins for cans and bottles is dangerous enough as it is, and they're not items that could do some serious burns.

[peas_and_corn]

Fill random ones with napalm?