The day a stranger made me change my behavior

Most people react angrily when a stranger tells them that they are doing something wrong — usually me too. But sometimes we should forget our pride and think. Maybe the stranger is right.

It must have been sometime in summer 2018. At that time, I worked full time and was on my way home after work.

I stood at the bus stop and smoked a cigarette. About ten other people were waiting with me for the bus to arrive finally. Of course, it was late again, and my mood was not very good although it was warm and the sun was shining.

The working day had been exhausting, and I would come home much too late again because I had worked overtime.

When I had finished smoking the cigarette, I dropped it to the floor and kicked it out. I didn’t worry about that at all, because since I started smoking in my youth, I had never learned anything else.

Everybody would throw their cigarettes everywhere, and nobody would mind. What else could you do? There were not every ten meters ashtrays on the streets.

In short: I had no awareness of the problem.

Well, to be honest, I somehow knew that throwing away cigarette butts was terrible for the environment, but I told myself I had no choice. Should I take my own ashtray with me everywhere?

Excuse me. You have lost something.

About half a minute later, when I stopped thinking about my discarded cigarette, someone tapped me on the shoulder.

“Sorry, you lost something,” said a bald man in a tracksuit, holding my discarded and trampled cigarette under my nose.

My first impulse was to ask him why he didn’t mind his own business. The guy looked like one of those eternally bad-tempered, morally superior, vegan super sportsmen of advanced age. Someone who annoys his surroundings all day long with smart advice and a raised index finger and considers himself infallible.

But I hesitated. My burgeoning anger gave way to the shame of being caught.

Of course, the man was right. Unsympathetic people can sometimes be right. In this case, the matter was clear. I had thrown away a cigarette and polluted the street with it. You just didn’t do that.

So I smiled at him, took the cigarette, and said, “Oh, thank you, you’re right. I didn’t know where to put it.”

He looked at me disapprovingly and pointed to the trash can standing next to the bus stop. Of course, I had already seen it myself, but I had not used it because there was no ashtray attached to it. I was afraid that if I had thrown in the cigarette butt, I would set the whole trash can on fire.

But now I understood that I had only talked myself into it. If you extinguish a cigarette very thoroughly, you can, of course, throw it into a bin containing paper, handkerchiefs, and other combustible waste. I had just been too lazy.

I nodded to the man and threw the used cigarette into the trash can. With one last annoying shake of his head, he turned away and left. I stood still and felt the looks of those around me.

Now I was a caught polluter who was publicly reprimanded. I would have liked to have sunk into the ground with shame.

When the bus arrived, I boarded, sat down, and thought about the incident all the way home.

Again and again, I wanted to get upset about this smartass, but I didn’t succeed. The guilt remained, and I knew I deserved it.

Research

On the same day, I researched on the Internet how polluting discarded cigarettes really are. I was still hoping to find out that everything wasn’t so bad and that this guy in a tracksuit had exaggerated.

To my horror, I found out that discarded cigarettes are a real environmental disaster. If the toxins get out of the filter and into the water or into the ground, they kill important microorganisms, contaminate the food chain, and even kill fish above a particular concentration.

Also, a commercial cigarette filter needs between ten and fifteen years to rot completely. With 5.6 trillion cigarettes smoked annually worldwide, you can imagine how big the problem really is.

The only solution is to dispose of cigarette butts exclusively in waste bins because then they do not end up in the environment, but in the incinerator, where they can be rendered harmless.

What I am doing differently today

In the meantime, I have switched to the e-cigarette, which means that I no longer produce cigarette waste, but this has only been the case recently.

Nevertheless, since I met the stranger at the bus stop, I have never thrown away a cigarette again. Since every day, I’ve been squeezing out my cigarettes on a wall or the street and carrying the cigarette with me until I passed a trash can.

My wife also got used to it long ago. (by itself — I didn’t have to persuade her).

It’s no problem always to have an empty box with you in which you can keep your cigarettes until you reach the next trash can.

Sometimes the others are right

I have not only learned how environmentally harmful cigarette filters are to the environment and how I can avoid simply throwing my cigarettes on the street.

The more valuable lesson was to realize that sometimes, you should pause when you are criticized. All too quickly, we react offended or aggressive when someone tells us that we are doing something harmful.

Nobody likes to feel like an idiot, and nobody likes to be taught. But aren’t we much bigger idiots if we always insist on doing what we want?

Shouldn’t we occasionally allow ourselves to be taught? Who knows everything, and who always does everything right?

I cannot claim that for myself, so it is better to think when someone criticizes you. It could be that the other person is right as an exception.

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