I live in a country where smoking has generally been on the decline for a while now but even still I see thousands of cigarette butts in just about any public place. They litter the sides of the road, bus shelters, alleyways, outside clubs, bars and pubs, public toilets, park benches and just about everywhere else. Its even extending to disposable vapes now as well.
For the most part, where I live doesn’t have that much of other kinds of litter about and is generally clean. And most public bins and all smoking areas have ashtrays and dedicated cigarette bins so it wouldn’t be hard to dispose of them properly like any other piece of rubbish and even then there’s often cigarette butts within sight of the bins and ashtrays.
Why then do people have a completely different approach for cigarettes?
I think this is partially just observational bias.
You only notice the smokers littering and not the ones squeezing the cherry out and pocketing the filter or throwing it away.
A lot of smokers do the above and if you ever meet them they smell next level disgusting. Their car ash tray will be full of butts, and there car will reek. They often just skoke inside, and their entire living space smells of stale tobacco. Their pants will reek because they store them in their pocket until they find a bin. But they don’t litter. The people who are trying to avoid smelling like an ash tray are the ones littering.
You see more of these people in places like California due to the fire risks. Back when I smoked I moved to SF and was surprised the first time I put a butt out in the ground. some random person came up to me and politely asked that I never do that again and to always extinguish the butt on the metal trash can and squeeze out the cherry. That wasn’t the norm on the East Coast which didnt have wildfires at the time.