Gardener catches nightmare neighbor tossing cigarette butts into their food plants: ‘Frustrating and dangerous’
Some nightmare neighbors used a vegetable garden as an ashtray, according to a photo recently shared on Reddit.
The poster said they had put an ashtray next to their tomatoes, peppers, and other veggies to no avail. Their food, situated in a shared yard, was continually used as a dumping ground for the toxic trash.
“It looks like a garden,” they wrote, understandably worried about the safety of their red onions.
“This is quite frustrating and dangerous as well,” one commenter wrote. “A person’s house in my neighbourhood caught on fire because someone left a cigarette butt in their flower pot.”
Another said: “Sad part is that our current troll culture means that they will just escalate if you say anything to them.”
Cigarette butts are the most abundant form of plastic pollution in the world. It can take 10 years for them to break down — they don’t ever biodegrade — and the toxic chemicals they leave behind last long after that.
Arsenic, lead, and other heavy metals from the butts inhibit plant growth and pollute waterways and oceans.
At least a couple of countries are trying to address the issue.
Spain has forced tobacco companies to pay for the cleanup of butt waste, while an Australian research and development group is looking to mushrooms for a solution.
Fungi Solutions has spent years coaxing oyster mushrooms into consuming cigarette butts, which can now be mostly consumed in about seven days, according to the Guardian. The goal of the project is to divert 1.2 million of the country’s 9 billion butts from landfills by the end of the year.
Smoking is extremely hazardous to human health, and cigarette butts can be even more dangerous when not properly discarded.
In response to a comment, the poster said they would move their garden away from the building to reduce the risk of a conflagration.
“I once had to put out my neighbor’s fire because they snubbed out a butt in an overflowed ash tray,” one user wrote. “The whole thing caught fire and it started to spread to the siding before they noticed. We were in townhouses and I was also standing outside smoking but I dispose of my trash like a civilized adult.”
Another noted: “Lots of fires started by cigs in planters. Might even want a cheap security camera so you can catch them setting your house on fire to show insurance company.”
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