Take a walk outside any urban-ish area and you’ll likely find at least one of these colorful chaps dotting the sidewalk…
I first started collecting these thinking they were transformers, which I only know about from my trailer trash days in Aptos before coming to live in New York City. I used to pick them up because I thought they were pretty, enchanted by all the bright colors.
Then, a friend told me they were e-cigarette butts and I got mad! I couldn’t believe smokers were transferring their butt-flicking habit to this new plastic medium. Butt flickers!
Well, a smoker is a smoker, I suppose, and old habits die hard. Whether its regular cigarette butts or e-cigarette butts, these guys belong in the garbage, or perhaps they can be recycled or better yet, re-used. They certainly do not belong on the ground, where they will inevitably get swept “away”…eventually to end up in the belly of a bird or fish. We can do better. Who is responsible?
Junebugbayer 