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1. The first thing I will do is simply be annoying about my issue. I am going to always be talking about it, because one of the root causes is that no one knows that cigarette butts are in fact litter.
2. I am going to put signs around transition points that say to properly dispose of cigarette butts. I feel like if people have a reminder, they are more likely to do the right thing.
3. I am going to pick up at least one piece of litter a day. While I know this is not addressing a root cause of the issue, it still needs to be done.  One piece may not seem like a lot, but one less cigarette butt outside could mean one less animal that gets poisoned.
4. One could call their state representative and lobby for increased litter laws.
5. I am going to talk to the dormitory advisory committee (or whatever deals with things like this) and try to get cigarette butt receptacle put near the backs of buildings.
6. I could also remind my friends who unfortunately smoke cigarettes to make sure they use a receptacle when disposing of them.
7. I could join Kick Butt Columbus and go pick up cigarette butts and other blight on a highway exit.
8. I could look at local restaurants and talk to the ones that don’t have cigarette butt receptacles outside them and try to get them to add some.
9. I could hold an information session in Morrill tower to talk to people and lay down some facts about litter.
10. I could make sure that whenever I see someone smoking I tell them to make sure to throw it away in a safe location.

I am going to do number 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

I am definitely going to face challenges when talking to people at Morrill tower while trying to get receptacles put up.

I hope to learn first hand how much litter there is in my area and how I can make more of a difference than I have been told.

While cigarette smoking has dropped in America by 28%, something more dangerous to society as a whole remains unspoken.  Cigarette butts are the most littered item in the U.S., and the entire globe.  Nearly every corner you turn on Ohio State’s campus, if you look at the curb, there are bound to be cigarette butts.  Toxic chemicals laden with carcinogens collect in the filter of the cigarette and get washed around by rain water.  The cigarette butts are then often times eaten by birds or small to medium sized mammals as they mistake it for food.

The root cause of this is simple, people simply don’t know that cigarette butts are litter.  A survey by Keep America Beautiful said that 77% of individuals don’t identify cigarette butts as litter.  Another problem area is known as a transition site.  A transition site is anywhere that a smoker must put out their cigarette before entering, for example: beaches, restaurants, parks, and stores.  According to one study, only 47% of these transition points have an ash tray or trash can.  To make things worse, cars are no longer being made with ash trays, so drivers are more inclined to simply throw a cigarette butt out the window.

While litter laws are a real thing in Ohio, I personally have never, EVER, seen them enforced.  There are numerous laws in the Ohio Revised Code with littering as the offense.  To begin, we should look at how Ohio describes litter.  It is described as, “any trash thrown down, discarded, or dropped by a person onto public property, private property not owned by an individual, or into Ohio’s waterways”.  The code also later says that it is littering whether the act is intentional or not.  Littering in Ohio is supposedly punishable by fines up to $500 and 60 days in jail.

While it may not appear so at first, cigarette butt litter impacts the community more than you think.  Other than killing local fauna, cigarette butts make public spaces look unappealing, and make up around 34% of all litter in outdoor recreation areas.  Cigarette butt litter can also lower a city’s foot traffic, tourism, and housing value.  It has been shown that if a community has litter, the property value will be at least 7% lower than if it did not.   I found an organization, Kick Butt Columbus, that holds an annual highway ramp clean up to remove cigarette butt litter and raise awareness on the hazards of this act.  While this does help remediate the problem, I don’t think that it addresses the root cause.  I think there should be more education and implementation of cigarette butt receptacles rather than simply cleaning up other people’s messes.

I selected the TED talk titled This app makes it fun to pick up litter.  This TED talk mainly talked about a crowd sourced litter clean up app, but I learned a bit about the relationship between San Francisco and big tobacco.  I think the most important thing that I learned is that every community has its own sort of litter blueprint.  I could look at the data for this in the future and find the best places to place receptacles or put up signs and talk to people.  One bias that may be present in this video is that the speaker created this app he is speaking about.  This means he is very passionate towards the issue and is a bit more likely to only pull facts from the side that he agrees with.

https://www.kab.org/cigarette-litter-prevention/problem-and-facts

http://www.beachapedia.org/Cigarette_Butt_Litter

https://www.kab.org/cigarette-litter-prevention/common-misconceptions

http://www.keepohiobeautiful.org/images/uploads/66872-B%20Rack%20Card.pdf

https://www.columbus.gov/publicservice/keep-columbus-beautiful/KickButtColumbus/

https://www.kab.org/cigarette-litter-prevention/economic-environmental-impact

The issue I have decided to explore is litter.  Ooooh, you’re thinking, how original (sarcastically at that).  However, I am going to be focusing on cigarette butts and how people don’t regard them as trash.  Originally, I was debating on researching and attempting to help remedy either bee colony depletion or the widespread loss of monarch butterflies.  Thankfully, I was walking back from class one day and saw a street corner absolutely littered with cigarette butts.  It made me think about why people think it is okay to just throw those wherever they please.  I think this impacted me the most because I realized how people think cigarette butts aren’t bad for the environment, so they simply throw them wherever, regardless of the proximity of a receptacle.  I did a little bit of research on litter and cigarette butts and I found out that cigarettes make up nearly 38 percent of all collected litter¹.  This means an estimated 1.69 billion pounds of cigarette butts “wind up as toxic trash” a year².

I think the hardest part about this project is going to be spreading the word.  Throwing cigarette butts on the ground is such a common practice among the 5.6 trillion, and counting, smokers world wide³.  I think word of mouth and social media could be very helpful in this aspect of getting the word out.  I also think that to effectively explore my issue I will simply need a computer.  It’s amazing how much can be done on this.  I can’t wait for the future steps of this experiment and I am really going to try to make a difference.

1. https://truthinitiative.org/news/5-ways-cigarette-litter-impacts-environment
2. http://www.no-smoke.org/learnmore.php?id=731

Wow! What fun this Columbus to-do list assignment has been.  I got to go to Antrim Lake, Scioto Mile Park, Goodale Park, and the Columbus Park of Roses.  The best part about these parks is that I can get to all of them simply by riding my bike on the Olentangy trail behind my dorm.  I learned how easily accessible downtown Columbus is even if I don’t have a car.  It only took me 20 minutes to get there from my dorm which was very surprising to me.  This assignment definitely led me to explore Columbus in general more than I would have.  I got to explore the city with my new friends and even get some exercise out of the process.   For someone else who must complete this assignment in the future I would whole heartedly suggest that they do the parks and trails list.  I had so much fun riding my bike around Columbus and learning new parks.

One of my earlier endeavor on this trip was to Antrim Park with Claire Murray.  We had a fun 40 minute bike ride north on the trail to get to this park.  The park has a beautiful lake and a lot of sitting areas if you want to simply hang out.  My favorite thing that happened at the park when we were there was looking at all the aquatic birds in the lake.  Overall, I would rate this park an 8/10 for me.  The only drawback is distance, but I would definitely recommend this park to a friend.

The next adventure was to the Columbus Park of Roses.  This was also with Claire.  This park was very nice and had a plethora of sports fields, walking areas, and nice shady trees.  I would rate this park a 9/10 with the drawback being lack of roses.  I think this park will always be a recommendation to others in my book.

The penultimate journey was to Goodale Park with Ben and Jason.  This park was very nice but in my opinion too hilly.  I think the park deserves a 7/10 because the lawn was well kept, and it seems like a nice place to bring children as it had a playground.  I would recommend this park to friends who want to get closer to the city of Columbus any day.

The final park I went to was the Scioto Mile with Ben and Jason.  This park was very beautiful and gets a 10/10 from me.  It is a sprawling park (I would assume a mile) along the side of the Scioto river with beautiful views of the city, bridges, and the water.  I would, and have already, recommend this to anyone interested in the great parks of Columbus.

For my to do list project I chose the Nature and Outdoor Recreation list.  I am looking forward to many things about this list.  I think the most prominent things I am excited about are going on fun bike rides with friends, and getting to see local parks.  Some things I am hoping to get out of this assignment are appreciation of local parks, exercise on a local trail, and having fun times with friends out in nature.

This is a picture of my friend Claire Murray and I having a splendid time on the Olentangy bike trail.  On this trip we biked to Antrim Park Lake and explored the surrounding areas.  I had a fun time riding my bike on the Olentangy trail.  I think the only confusing part about the Olentangy trail is that when you get farther north, you must go off the trail for a bit and then continue back on it further up.  One thing I do not enjoy about the Olentangy trail is riding past an area about two minutes north of Morrill tower.  I think there is a sewage output nearby and it always stinks in the same area.  On the other hand, I think my favorite part of the Olentangy trail is the scenery.  It is so nice to go on a bike ride and look at all the beautiful nature that you are surrounded by.  I think the Olentangy trail is my favorite part about living on west campus.  I will definitely recommend the trail to my friends in the future, and I already have recommended it to many people.

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