To protect the environment, an 87-year-old Japanese man picked up 100,000 cigarette butts in 5 years
2024-08-15
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[Global Times Comprehensive Report] According to the Japanese "Daily News" report on the 14th, 87-year-old Japanese man Watanabe Wenhua, who was once a "long-time smoker", has been sticking to a unique "daily routine" for more than five years: picking up cigarette butts while walking near his home. As of July 7 this year, he has picked up 100,000 cigarette butts. Watanabe, who also promotes the "anti-smoking rights" movement and edits the "Anti-Smoking Daily", said: I hope everyone can realize that littering cigarette butts is destroying the environment.
When Watanabe was young, he was engaged in social activities related to pollution control and environmental protection, but he was also a heavy smoker who smoked 60 cigarettes a day. At the age of 39, he realized that he could not participate in social activities to solve pollution and environmental problems while smoking, so he decided to quit smoking. Since then, he has begun to call on society to pay attention to the harm caused by smoking. Watanabe found a lot of cigarette butts on the roadside while taking a walk, so starting in January 2019, he took a clip and a plastic bag every morning and walked around the Keio Line Roka Park Station near his home for 30 minutes, and recorded the number of cigarette butts picked up along the way, an average of about 58 a day. He noticed that there were "habitual offenders" and the same brand of cigarette butts appeared repeatedly in some fixed places. Then the butts of electronic cigarettes also joined the ranks. Watanabe also picked up ordinary garbage, but the most troublesome thing was the cans with several cigarette butts. He turned the can upside down and shook it, but the cigarette butts could not come out, so he had to use pliers to break the can open and take it out.
In 1978, Watanabe began working in the secretariat of the "no-smoking right" movement. "No-smoking right" refers to the right not to inhale the smoke emitted by others when they smoke. At that time, smoking was allowed everywhere in Japan, whether on trains, airplanes or hospitals.
In 1980, Watanabe and others filed the first anti-smoking lawsuit in Japan against the then National Railways (now East Japan Railway Company), demanding the addition of non-smoking vehicles and compensation for victims of secondhand smoke. This was also the first lawsuit in Japan aimed at preventing non-smokers from being harmed by secondhand smoke. Although the plaintiff lost the case, this incident laid the groundwork for the subsequent ban on smoking in Japan's transportation system.
Two years later, most national railway express trains introduced non-smoking vehicles. In 1988, a Japanese taxi driver launched the "No Smoking Taxi" campaign. Taxi drivers with "No Smoking Car" signs posted on their vehicles have the right to refuse passengers from smoking on the bus. In April 2020, Japan fully implemented the revised "Health Promotion Law", banning smoking in all indoor places, and further expanding the scope of the smoking ban.
Now that the smoking rate is declining, the harm of secondhand smoke in Japan is also decreasing, and the remaining problem is littering. Watanabe took the opportunity of the daily morning cigarette butt collection activity to propose a system for tobacco companies to purchase cigarette butts. He believes that if convenience stores recycle cigarette butts at "1 yen per cigarette butt", the behavior of littering cigarette butts should be reduced immediately.
A 2022 analysis by the World Health Organization (WHO) said that tobacco contains harmful chemicals that leak into the environment when discarded. Every year, 4.5 trillion cigarette filters are discarded, polluting oceans, rivers, and soil, and cleaning up these cigarette butts also costs huge taxes.
The public in many countries has begun to call on tobacco companies to be responsible for tobacco waste recycling. For example, Spain issued a decree in 2023 that tobacco companies should bear the cost of cleaning cigarette butts. Japan Tobacco (JT) has carried out volunteer cigarette butt cleaning activities in regional activities and called on people not to litter cigarette butts on its official website.
Watanabe said: "I hope everyone can realize that carelessly discarding cigarette butts will pollute the environment. In order to reduce the habit of littering cigarette butts, I will continue to pick up cigarette butts in the future." (Strict)
