I don't always get wound up about stuff - makes for too many grey hairs, but something got me thinking yesterday. As I stepped out of my truck in downtown Kelowna, I was met by a big pile of cigarette butts dumped on the ground. This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. One other time really stands out as well, it was during the Okanagan Park fire. I was coming down the hill towards Kelowna from Westbank. You could see the fire burning on the hill above the homes of the Mission area. This fire, I am sure you are aware, burned 250 houses and at one point caused an evacuation that saw 35,000 people leaving their homes. So as I was driving, I saw a car full of young adults throwing cigarette butts out the window of their car with sparks flying as they bounced across the pavement. Yes, I hunted them down and gave them a piece of my mind - to blank stares from some and glares from others that said more than words.

They just didn't get it.

Now like many four-wheelers, I have taken part in my fair share of trail cleanups - hauling junk out of the bush trying to keep trails open. A recent trip on the Whipsaw had the back of my pickup full of blue tarp left on the side of the trail - left by four-wheelers, I am sad to report. They did an oil change/leak fix, and were good enough to catch the oil in the tarp but then left it behind along with the old filter, and oil cans.

Heck, after a good rinse that tarp kept the weather off my sleds all fall, so it was a good find in the end, but disheartening nonetheless. Unfortunately, it's rare that any of these trail cleanups lead to any trail "openings" or even recognition that we try our best to keep the areas we use clean. It does make me feel good that I am doing my part to keep our backcountry clean and that is important in itself.

I'm fairly certain that most four-wheelers don't drop off the junk, though I am sure we too can do a better job in the back country (re-big blue tarp). I am sure I am the culprit for the odd piece of paper flying out of the bed of my truck on long highway drives, but I do try to secure my stuff. One extreme instance of getting caught for littering happened two years ago when a friend was given a ticket because his day permit fell off his Land Cruiser on a trail ride. Yup, a $200 fine by levied by a forestry official!

So back to those "butts", and forgive me all you smokers who take care with every butt - but I was once a smoker as well, so don't think of this as some big "hang all smokers" crusade. As a teen smoker I probably dropped 80% of my "butts" on the ground - mostly in a big pile behind the shop at Belmont High or by the "smoking tree" at Spencer Junior.

But all the talk about doing little things these days to make a difference I thought this was an interesting place to start.

Online research data shows there are 4,850,000 smokers in Canada, or about 20% of the population. If the average smoker dropped two butts on the ground each day that's just shy of 10 million butts per day on the ground. Over a year, that's 3.65 billion butts per year. I'll just let that sink in...

So figure at a half gram per butt, 28 grams per ounce, 16 ounces per pound - ah... don't ask how that just rolled off my head. Anyhow, that works out to an incredible number - over 2,000 tons of cigarette butts just tossed out windows or crushed on the ground.

The roads would look a lot nicer and there'd be a lot fewer forest fires by keeping those butts in check.

But what if you're in the 80% non-smoker bracket? There are other things I am sure most of us do - but let's NOT do the math on random camping toilet duties. I mention this because parts of the Rubicon Trail were closed due to white piles of toilet paper all over. Doing something small like throwing your T/P into the camp fire in the morning can make a difference too.

So if everyone commits to do something small each day (having very little impact on our daily rituals), collectively our efforts will build into something big, resulting in cleaner trails and streets.

Albert Vandervelde
Editor, 4WD Magazine