$100 fine for flicking a cigarette butt?

Alexander Chang
Capital News Service

Flicking that cigarette butt out your car window or tossing it on the ground could cost you $100 if Delegate Joe Morrissey, D-Highland Springs, has his way.
His bill to impose such a fine got snuffed out during the General Assembly’s recent session. But Morrissey plans to reintroduce the idea during the 2012 legislative session.
He said he is optimistic the legislation eventually will pass because of growing concern for the environment.
“Every single cigarette butt is filled with toxins, and there are 5.2 trillion cigarettes a year,” Morrissey said. “The biggest single pollutant to the James River is cigarette butts, and the idea of the bill is to change their (smokers’) habits.”
Morrissey represents House District 74, which includes Charles City County, parts of Henrico and Prince George counties, and parts of the cities of Hopewell and Richmond. The James River flows through his district.
House Bill 2344 would have imposed “a civil penalty of $100 for each improperly disposed of cigarette butt.”
In February, the House Committee on Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources voted 11-7 to table the measure. Opponents said the bill could result in fines of thousands of dollars. For example, if somebody dumped an ashtray with 50 cigarettes, the penalty would amount to $5,000.
Smokers’ rights advocates said that the bill was an attempt not to help the environment but to score political points by targeting smokers.
“If legislators were serious about clean air and pollution, we’d be changing from fossil fuels to ethanol more adamantly,” said Karyn Kimberling, president of the Virginia Smokers Alliance.
“If legislators were serious about clean water, we would make sure large chemical companies were not dumping toxic sewage into our water supply. Even Styrofoam cups release toxins when they decompose. So if legislators want to claim environmentalism as a reason to support the bill, then it’s hypocritical.”
The Cigarette Butt Advisory Group, a project based at San Diego State University’s Graduate School of Public Health, has been studying the environmental effects of cigarette butts. In a 2009 study, the group said the chemicals in filtered cigarette butts can kill fish.
“Tobacco product litter, particularly cigarette butts, has been shown to be toxic, slow to decompose, costly to manage, and growing in volume – a trend that appears to be exacerbated by the increased prevalence of indoor smoking bans,” the group says on its website, Cigwaste.org.
The group says cigarette butts are “the No. 1 littered item in the world” and the most common item picked up on beach cleanup days in the United States.
But Kimberling said there are ways to address the litter problem without imposing a $100 fine for every cigarette butt.
“I think people should put trash in the trash can,” Kimberling said. “If legislators put out appropriate receptacles, then people will probably use them but they aren’t.”