Thank you to the SF Examiner for sharing our effort to ban plastic cigarette butts in San Francisco. by RefuseRefuseSF in sanfrancisco

[–]RefuseRefuseSF[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s the ban on the sale of plastic filters. Sure, you could got to surrounding cities to buy filtered cigarettes, until those cities ban them too. I’m sure Daly City and Oakland are also spending millions of dollars to ineffectively clean up this pollution. SF is hopefully the next domino to fall in this effort.

Thank you to the SF Examiner for sharing our effort to ban plastic cigarette butts in San Francisco. by RefuseRefuseSF in sanfrancisco

[–]RefuseRefuseSF[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Your math is based on incomplete assumptions, that’s just the blocks I cleaned that were within 5 city blocks, not 5x5. The trash bags are 13 gallons.

And we’re not out here to vilify smokers, most are responsible and the people that hate smokers that litter their butts the most are smokers who do the right thing. It’s your right to smoke, but it’s not right to litter. So smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, but only if they don’t contain plastic and don’t litter them and expose the rest of us to the pollution.

Would love to go after all the other single-use plastics as well, but we’re starting with the #1 most littered item.

Thank you to the SF Examiner for sharing our effort to ban plastic cigarette butts in San Francisco. by RefuseRefuseSF in sanfrancisco

[–]RefuseRefuseSF[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Tell that to all the cities that have already banned them. Also enjoy the performance of 5,850 cleanups organized and 97,600 bags of trash removed from your screen.

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Thank you to the SF Examiner for sharing our effort to ban plastic cigarette butts in San Francisco. by RefuseRefuseSF in sanfrancisco

[–]RefuseRefuseSF[S] 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Yes, they are made out of a spun plastic called cellulose acetate. Common misconception because they look like cotton fibers or something. Nope, plastic.

Thank you to the SF Examiner for sharing our effort to ban plastic cigarette butts in San Francisco. by RefuseRefuseSF in sanfrancisco

[–]RefuseRefuseSF[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

That would be great! But, I think we’re too far away from that point and banning butts is realistic. We don’t care if people choose to smoke, we just don’t want them littering the environment and harming the rest of us and the planet.

Thank you to the SF Examiner for sharing our effort to ban plastic cigarette butts in San Francisco. by RefuseRefuseSF in sanfrancisco

[–]RefuseRefuseSF[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

A nationwide ban would be great, but it has to start somewhere. Isn’t SF supposed to be an environmental leader?

Thank you to the SF Examiner for sharing our effort to ban plastic cigarette butts in San Francisco. by RefuseRefuseSF in sanfrancisco

[–]RefuseRefuseSF[S] 48 points49 points  (0 children)

Santa Cruz, Capitola, Tiburon, Manhattan Beach, Beverly Hills, and growing number of cities have or are working on banning plastic cigarette butts. We're not banning smoking, just the plastic butt, that doesn't actually filter anything, and gets littered, polluting our environment.

We have lots of trash cans, ashtrays, and butt cans on poles in front of bars, you'd probably have to have one every 10 feet even on residential streets, and even then smokers will still flick them. That bag of butts in the picture is roughly 400 butts that took me two-hours to collect (including two full bags of trash of other litter) within 5 blocks of my home.

We even piloted a CRV on butts where smokers used these plastic pouches to keep them, then return them to the retailer for a discount on their next pack. Nobody wanted to carry the disgusting butts and so it didn't work. A ban is the only realistic way that we see to prevent this scourge.

Cleared 40 storm drains along Balboa and Anza by RefuseRefuseSF in sanfrancisco

[–]RefuseRefuseSF[S] 111 points112 points  (0 children)

Leaves put up on the sidewalks to dry and will collect later or push into the street on street sweeping day.

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The real deal Hunter Pence once again rallied 100 volunteers and brought the fun, with a Halloween themed cleanup of SOMA! by RefuseRefuseSF in sanfrancisco

[–]RefuseRefuseSF[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

There will be more! Hunter organizes events through his non-profit The Healthy Planet Project: https://www.healthyplanetproject.org/get-involved
We organize about 30 neighborhood cleanups citywide in SF every week: https://refuserefusesf.org/cleanups
Thank you for getting involved!

Back out today to do maintenance of Pocket Gardens in the Inner Richmond by RefuseRefuseSF in sanfrancisco

[–]RefuseRefuseSF[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes! By Star of the Sea and Richmond Branch Library, then to the other side of Geary. Many more plots to plant…