Yesterday I went rollerblading downtown again. At some point I have to walk up the hill and then a bit more to where I was going (the mattress store to refund my reservations).
As I was walking past some shops, restaurants and work locations, I see people smoking cigarettes. in one particular case, I saw a big sign outside a building that said in French something like "No Smoking Environment/Zone. Please respect the environment."
And what do I see? Two middle-aged women not giving a shit about the sign and smoking right beside it. AS I got closer they were finishing their cigarettes and then threw them on the ground, stomped them out, and then walked away to go inside.
This is how unconscious some people are. They just don't care about things larger than themselves, like the no smoking zone, or the public environment not being your personal garbage can to just do with as you wish expecting someone else to clean up after you.
They are willfully ignorant in many ways. It's not that they are all unaware of the sign, or all unaware of their actions -- it's that they don't care about what their actions do, the consequences of them and the responsibility they bear in doing them. They are apathetic and therefore ignore what the greater implications or long-term effects of their actions have. This behavior applies outside of cigarette smoking as well.
In my past job years ago as a technical support agent, I would sometimes take one of my 2 daily breaks with some smokers just to chat. One time someone -- who I had spoken to before -- was smoking outside the work building. There are ashtrays to put your cigarette in right there at the door. But instead of doing what any decent smoker would do, he was such a low consciousness person that didn't care about what they were doing that they simply threw the cigarette on the ground rather than properly dispose of their filth. I called him out on it, "there is an ashtray right there and you throw just throw it on the ground," and he said "yeah" with on care about what he was doing.
This is one type of unaware, unthinking, low consciousness "unconscious" living that we need to battle in this world. These types of people are very much self-concerned and don't see themselves in the mirror honestly. Much like power abusers who don't actually see or care about what they do and justify how their behavior is "right".
Here is one final example, but not with cigarettes. And this is the same day as the middle-aged women treating the sidewalk like a garbage for their cigarette butts.
Earlier that morning, I was out getting food. It was also recycling, garbage and compost day. On my way back I saw a blue recycling bag that had a bunch of eggs in them, with crap coming out. I have to wonder how anyone would consider eggs to be acceptable in a recycling bag. Maybe they use the more expensive blue bags for garbage too? But that doesn't really make sense costs wise, nor for how the different collectors know what to collect. Blue bags are for recycling, not garbage. The bad did seem to have recyclable material but it had eggs in it too. I just don't get some people.
So that's my little talk on how some people are low consciousness ignoramus' who don't care to self-reflect, analyze or understand their own behavior and what they are doing.
Did you stop to pick the cigarette butts up? With the unbelievable impact of our unconsciousness on the environment, I have come to a compromise about it where I try to lead the best I can by example and beyond what I can do personally I accept without anger most of the time what others do because what tends to make me angry is seeing people do the same kinds of things I do. I used to just walk by other people's trash and condemn them for it. Now I see my choice is either to pick it up myself to solve the problem in front of me or to accept that my decision to walk by it is okay as well. I walk my dogs every night and sometimes pick up trash and put it the trashcans. Other times I just keep walking and think maybe next time.
I always take the time to bend down and pick up someones trash in front of them. I think this is better then just mentioning to them not to litter. About 80% of the time when I am bending down to grab their trash, the will try to jump in front of me to grab it. It is at this time, when I have their full attention, to stress to them the harm of littering....We only have one planet earth.
No I didn't. I have picked up things laying in the street like broken umbrellas in the road, and sometimes a bag blowing by, or some other larger things, but I don't go around picking up all the garbage others have left lying around, and no not nasty cigarette butts either lol.
Everyone ends up paying for the cleaning of the streets through their taxes since people don't want to engage in the self-control to be more responsible. If you accept that you need to pick it up, then everywhere you look there is garbage and you wouldn't get from one place to another in X time, but in 2x time, etc. because of all the trash there is to pick up that you can see. I think we will consider things in our immediate path, and maybe the size as well, but not every piece of litter we see around us. Thanks for the feedback.
Thank you for the reply krnel and I appreciate you sharing what you see here with us!
In order words, never resist what is. What it is what it is - it is. Accept, then act.
YES!
I am always conscious of what I am doing to my environment.. At least I try to be. It's not even about a sign being there or not for me. It never should be. It's about self-respect and dignity. When I use anything with a wrapper (fast-food wrappings..etc), and I accidentally drop it on the floor, I would sometimes (maybe 10% of the time) just walk away because I'm not in the mood to go to the bin if it's too far.. I can never actually do it. I would start walking away, and I will feel far too guilty.
I'm not sure if it's just my ethics.. But I just can't do it. It's such a disruptive feeling that haunts you until you do the right thing.
Then again, most people very unobservant. They won't even register that they are doing anything negatively-impactful to the environment around them.. And for those that do realize, they just couldn't care less.
It's sad, but unfortunately just the way it is. That's why I just focus on making sure I do the right thing. Because people don't do what you say, they do what you do. Always try and lead by example :)
Indeed, lead by example is a good principle. Thanks for the feedback.
It's called manners and, sadly they have gone out of vogue for many.
It never fails to surprise me how many people compliment us on our children's manners because they will hold the door for someone or say please and thank you.
I do not belive that it is possible to cultivate enviromental concious behavor in the short time. But it is possible to create the cult of good manner, There is the other way - through penalties.
In Singapore public smoker will pay penalty starting from $ 500 and can be jailed for short term if been cought in the same situation during 2 weeks after first incident. Looks extreamely severely, but if there could have been an option big penalty or 20 hours of street cleaning, I think the planet could had looked better.
Haha, yeah, when people don't want to use self-control, the externally imposed control gets put in place to stop them. Community service would be the best thing I guess.
Tragedy of the Commons.
It's why shared property doesn't work. The number of people who are lazy and won't take care of their property always outnumber the people who will. And this ratio only gets worse if the population thinks that someone else will take care of them.
Hehe, indeed. I wonder if that follows the 80/20 tendency.
I wouldn't be surprised!
You are still lucky to find only cigarette butts on the ground, check what the people of my country use to do!
Some people are born with no brains, I guess!
Indeed. In the past, western cities were littered with trash in the streets as many people just threw things out their window.
People are so lazy and don't care. They think the world, the people in it and the resources are there to serve them. No one thinks that their actions have poor outcomes that will affect everyone. Sad
Yup.
This annoys me so much! I remember going to the outlet mall with some friends and I saw a couple kids drinking soda. A few seconds later, they accidentally dropped their empty cup and left it on the ground! I seriously couldn't believe what I was seeing. People these days have no respect for anything that's not theirs. They act like they own everything and they're entitled to everything. We're raising a generation of snowflakes with no punishment or reprimand. These people need to be taught a lesson that it's not okay to treat the world as your garbage disposal. Have some respect and do your job, because heaven forbid you walk an extra 50 feet to throw away your trash. This is one of my pet peeves and I'm so glad you covered it. Let's keeps this world a better place!
So many people are like this. We have to be conscious of our surroundings and to know that you leave a place as you found it. If you own something, you have the right to do what you want with it, but that is not the same for public areas and spaces! Have some respect for others' things and the world will be a better place :)
Right on! You said it ;)
I am a smoker that actually smokes very very little compared to most (an average of just two packs a month), but I do smoke.
I might actually disregard a non-smoking sign that is out in the open. The open air is ventilated well enough for smoking not be a problem, so I view those signs as unreasonable unless even a single cigarette could be a fire hazard like at a gas station or I don't know what.
This doesn't mean that I don't care about my buds thought and I would never put them out on the ground and not dispose of them in a proper way.
I often take hikes in nature and as counterproductive and contradictory as it might be, I sometimes smoke a cigarette or two when I'm out in nature. But my backpack always has an old facial cream box to store the buds as it closes really well so I don't end up smelling like an ashtray but still get to carry away my buds instead of throwing them away there.
I use something like this one:
Thanks for being responsible ;) Some people commenting who are smokers don't think it's a problem as they don't want to admit culpability for doing something wrong lol.
I don't view it as a big thing, I just have seeing cigarette buds everywhere, especially in nature. And they stay there for a long time.
People are pigs.
Yes, I just said that... and it's painting with a very broad brush. Basically, I'm alignment with what you're saying... lack of consciousness; lack of mindfulness. I find it particularly ironic when someone has obviously decided to be "environmentally conscious" by driving a Prius, but then they drive around pitching butts out the window. Or the people who support GreenPeace and have "Save The Rainforest" bumper stickers... on their SUV so large it can be seen from Pluto.
Double-think is powerful in our Orwellian world :P It's oxymoronic I suppose as well ;)
I feel you! :P
So people don't at all about the environment.
I live in an apartment and sadly the garbage here doesn't get much filtered. Mostly everything goes together. Thankfully clean plastic jugs, poddles and such and cardboard have their own containers.
Wish there was more.
Yeah with compost and recycling I don't have regular garbage anymore. Small bag lasts for 1 month or more.
I made a post about this issue about a week ago. It took me some hours of investigation and I realized that it's getting even worse because people nowadays give less shit than they actually did. You can check it out, I would appreciate your opinion about this -> https://steemit.com/nature/@robvanvarenberg/why-waste-separation-is-fundamentally-influencing-the-life-of-world-s-population
@krnel...Thank You 4 sharing... especially liked Your comment...
Thanks Again... Have a Good Week !!
We have only one enemy to battle, Our self
You're welcome, thanks, and you too ;)
That's a nice post bro. I am from India. You know its already famous for it's huge population. We need to learn this for good society and good environment.
Indeed, I hear India is adopting crypto well?
@krnel - Living in the part of the world where social consciousness is almost absent, I come across such examples of garbage almost every day. It is amazing how people keep their own personal space (their homes and office spaces) spotlessly clean but the moment they step out, they start littering. I think it is just a feeling that "some one else will clean up the mess" that drives them to do it. I am sure that education and targeted campaigning will definitely solve this problem but dedicate efforts will be required. Thanks for your thought provoking blog (as usual)
Thanks for sharing. Upvoted
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Yeah, why bother to clean up after ourselves if we can just get everyone else through tax money to do it through public works ... :\
I saw a kid toss a candy wrapper out of the window of a car last week. I didn't fault the kid. No way did the parent not know.
Yes, children have not matured in awareness of various aspects of reality and more of a socio-centric focus has developed as opposed to more ego-centric considerations.
So, in laymen term, someday we hope litterbugs realize that it's not all about them. :)
Articles like this are needed on regular basis. We humans have a memory-problem. We need to be reminded of what the consequences of our actions are.
Yup, forget or ignore what we do and keep making the same mistakes because we don't want to honestly look at what we're doing hehe.
Upvote! Good stuff, hope to see you more often here. Also, fun fact: cheetahs can accelerate from 0 to 70 km/h (43mp/h) in 3 seconds :D
It is an issue that people give less attention. they are free to do every thing when they are at public places , Even they do not think they are also part of this place where they are breathing .
Too much "individual thinking" ;)
great post , great content . up voted :)
I feel you but smoking is more complicated than that. I'm not supporting that they ignored the sign, but you can't just store a cig in your pockets to dispose of later.
If others can pick up the butts from the ground, then they can too and bring it to a garbage can?
We should try, it smells horrible though, ash all over. I'm not trying to justify but let you into what we consider. Once you get the ash on you the smell goes with you and bothers many. So it goes to the floor because the fire can be controlled better then, less risky, not that the environment is less important, not trying to take away from your point but add to it.
Someone else will fix it. It's probably one of the most common reasons why people don't care. Like the littering. People would go, ah someone is paid to sweep this area anyway, let them have something to do.
Superficial nonsense. I smoke, respect my environment, my butts go where they belong. ...and I know where they end up. Massive landfills. I don't forget that part. All you're really complaining about is how some people don't move their trash from one place to another, more convenient place, where you don't have to look at it.
i will never through garbage in ware other then in to a proper garbage bin. I think every one should contribute to protect our world.