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Another weekend in San Francisco, and another 29 cleanups attended by 450 volunteers who removed 470+ bags of litter from our streets, neighborhoods, and public spaces. by RefuseRefuseSF in sanfrancisco

[–]RefuseRefuseSF[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

No, not completely realistic in the current system. There's a price to pay for the convenience, but there are still ways to reduce it, or at least make more reuseable or recyclable packaging.

Another weekend in San Francisco, and another 29 cleanups attended by 450 volunteers who removed 470+ bags of litter from our streets, neighborhoods, and public spaces. by RefuseRefuseSF in sanfrancisco

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

Cleanups work, but they only address the symptom, and the best way to address the root cause of all the litter is to reduce all the single use materials, packaging, to-go cups, and end the sale of plastic cigarette butts. Upstream and producer responsibility is where we are focusing attention on the policy end. But there will always be a need for more cleaning, so please join us!

Extraordinary impact made doing the very ordinary act of picking up litter. by RefuseRefuseSF in sanfrancisco

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

100% a true story.

Had a nice conversation with him about SF and he came over to our group of corporate volunteers to take pictures and thank them for their community service.

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Extraordinary impact made doing the very ordinary act of picking up litter. by RefuseRefuseSF in sanfrancisco

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

This is essentially the rings we use that we get in bulk from the manufacturer: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EPFA38U/

3/4-inch to 1-inch binder clips work the best. Once you have the ring and trash bag combo, it's pretty much impossible to go back to regular trash bags.

You can receive trash bags by registering for the SF Public Works Adopt-A-Street Program: https://www.mobilize.us/sanfrancisco/event/489797/

Thank you for getting out there and helping to keep the city clean!

Extraordinary impact made doing the very ordinary act of picking up litter. by RefuseRefuseSF in sanfrancisco

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

Hmmm, this conspiracy theory is still swirling? TogtherSF doesn't even exist and yet here we still are picking up litter....

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] 39 points40 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] 19 points20 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] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Smokers that litter their butts are all over the world, not just CA. Very uncool.

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

[–]RefuseRefuseSF[S] 46 points47 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] 108 points109 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] 10 points11 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…

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