It's the Swiss concern for the environment. Didn't you get the memo?

No, actually it's not. But they are equally lazy and ignorant. However, I know kindergardens in Zurich who have to pay someone to clean their garden every morning because smokers throw cigarettes over the fence day after day - at least kids don't have to be rushed to hospital after playing with an empty paper bag.

Oh and according to the litter campaign, 58% of all litter are cigarette butts. So while I don't think it is only the smokers, I do think it is an issue.

If that's 58% by volume, then that's a ridiculously large number of cigarette butts!! Got a link to the study?

I've got a graph, but not the fully study (yet):


58% cigarettes, 9% cardboard/paper, 10% "biological", 11.6% plastic, 7.3% glass

And yes, it is the number of "littering events" rather than the volume. So that basically refers to # of items retrieved.

Since the start of the smoking ban, smokers are "sent out" when they want to smoke. The problem is that there are neither ashtrays nor litter-baskets around which means that they will throw things onto the roads

@tomberli - but didn't you hear that cigarette butts are biodegradable? That's what I thought (spoken sarcastically). I agree with you whole-heartedly that the littering of butts is atrocious and one of the most disappointing things I've experienced thus far in Switzerland. I wish that they would start enforcing a littering law as well. I think that the people would follow the rules if the government and people just made the rule. Maybe the law exists and I just don't know about it. If the law exists or doesn't is of no consequence. We all need to take better care of the beautiful landscape that we have here in Switzerland.

Interestingly enough frineds visiting from England where there is a religious fervor against smoking, pointed out that there are far less butts around in Switzerland than the UK. Food for thought in the debate

I'm sorry to say, that has more to do with the efficient great cleaning service provided by Swiss cities (way to go Switzerland) than the fact that people don't through the butts into the street/smoke less. They do throw them, but they are quickly cleaned up.

Not trying to denigrate the English cleaning services though.

Reminds me of Willan and Searle's "Back to Skool"

If the number of ciggie butts behind the bike shed were anything to go by either the school gardener was on 50,000 a day or the school boys had a smoking problem...

This is what is so amazing about the English Forum. You can go away for months, come back one day and find the same topic being discussed again by the same people, with the same reasoning. Forget it, non-smokers will never understand and will never learn to move away from smokers in public places or not stand next ashtrays. It's a lemming quality they have, I guess. Smokers will continue to be crucified and no matter how considerate they really are or not, makes absolutely no difference to non-smokers who are politically correct in their condemnations. Next topic please.

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A valuable but incomplete strand of thought...

To put it a bit more realistically, the school boys have a problem with their teachers about smoking

When does this happen? I've never seen it. If I'm sitting alone at a bus stop and someone comes and sits *right next to* and proceeds to light up (happens every time), where's the consideration? If my office mate goes out for a ciggy break every hour and comes back smelling like a forest fire in a cheap Russian ciggy factory, where's the considertion? That he didn't smoke in the office? If I'm riding my motorcycle down the highway and some smoker flicks a lit but out the window right into my helmet or my chest, where's the consideration? If they're so stinky, why not use the *ash tray* in yhour car?

And where is the consideration that we have to listen to you grumbling and moaning? Be happy, you will live longer than the rest of us smokers. And I also happened to say "considerate or NOT"...At this point I could say non-smokers continuously take things out of context but that of course would not be fair now, would it.

Consideration begets consideration, does it not? It's like respect, you don't automatically get it.

This thread has finally hit me. I've smoked my last cigarette this morning and will try my best to not smoke again. Hopefully now there will be one less person smoking on the railway stations.

Yes, let`s discuss Sex, those who Do and those who Don`t................and how it affects you, and those around you.......

Or .... Winter Tyres .....?

Or .... how often do you defrost your freezer?

I must ask where exactly are all the complainers from?
In Ireland where i'm from though you cannot smoke at railway stations (and in all honesty anyone with a car doesn't travel by train its more expensive and slower) but at tram and light rail platforms people puff away. They discard butts out of the car window and into puddles etc...
is this topic filled with Californians or what?

Thanks for the input---but I don't quite get the californian reference?

Well, along with the cigarettes and lighter, why don't they carry a portable ashtray around with them?

Or is it ok to dump your rubbish in the countryside because there are no bins around.

The only place I've been where I was assaulted for lighting up!