by Matthew Holskin

It’s a long, bumpy haul across I-90, but you’ll make it with a Camel. Some people, like me, travel by cigarettes. It’s one to the mall, five to Chicago, and three packs to Connecticut. Normal people can use an odometer; I use my lungs.

The morning cigarette is the worst unless I haven’t been to bed the night before. On the rare occurrence that I’m awake and driving at 8 a.m., I’ll always pass some poor suited-up 35-year-old in a Toyota ashing out the window on his way to work. I can’t help myself but to light up in sympathy.

That’s only two people, but if you consider the whole carton, you’ve got a serious problem on hand.

We live in a semi-considerate world where we now take our pollution outside. By doing this, we’ve taken on two bad habits. When we go outside, sidewalks, grassy plains, curbs and waterways become ashtrays. With more than 3.8 million licensed motorists in Wisconsin, and 11,800 miles of road in the state, we’ve got a pretty long ashtray needing cleaning.

Of all the cars I’ve been in, I only know one driver who uses his little plastic ashtray. Mine seems more suited for holding toll change and parking tickets. I throw my cigarettes out the window; tar belongs with tar. But what happens to these remnants of miles past? Where have all the butts gone?

I’d venture to say that 95 percent of cigarettes wind up on the ground. The litter problem starts even before the cigarette is lit, according to Carrie Gallagher Sussman, a program director at Keep America Beautiful. She says that people don’t plan ahead when they light up. So if all us smokers just outlined a plan before each cigarette, we might live in a cleaner society?

As a person with an addiction, I can honestly say that although this point is valid, it is not feasible. Smokers are knowingly polluting their own bodies; what would make them all of a sudden have care for a larger body: the environment?

I’d like to say that I’m too smart to litter, but my hand has a mind of its own. And because of people with careless hands like me, Gallagher Sussman says last year we spent $100 million nationally solely on highway cigarette cleanup. Maybe I’m blind. I never see mounds of ashes, nor do I see anything or anyone cleaning them up. Does a magic sweeper exist or is some fantasy midnight patrol vacuuming up Highway 51?

I doubt you can call a chain gang of Boy Scouts a magic sweeper, but that’s the type of group that makes up Wisconsin’s Adopt-A-Highway program. Led by Barbara Mindak, about 1,600 groups statewide comprise the volunteer program dedicated to keeping litter off roadways.

The Adopt-A-Highway Program shined and picked up 416 tons of litter last year. Thankfully, this trash was taken to the proper landfill so it could be consolidated into a massively jolting threat to wildlife.

If a gang of every person that inhaled my second-hand smoke, every animal that choked on my litter and every Boy Scout that bagged my cigarette were to ever gang up on me, I might think twice about my mess. A mob that scary could certainly influence my smoking habits. Maybe that’s the group we need to fix our problems.