In Montreal, Canada, at least 60 fires and millions of dollars of damage were caused by cigarette butts carelessly tossed into flower pots, planters and flower beds in 2017, according to the Service de sécurité incendie de Montréal (Montreal fire department). I’m sure the same thing is happening everywhere.
I don’t think a gardener who smokes would ever think of tossing a cigarette butt into a planted container or into a flower bed, not even into decorative mulch. We’d recognize that they are ornamental plantings and worth a bit of respect. But, of course, not everyone is a gardener and clearly some people see no substantial difference between a flower pot and an ashtray. (Hint: flower pots usually contain living plants, ashtrays don’t!) So, if you run into friends or family members who haven’t realized how careless they’re being, please let them know.
There are all sorts of inflammable products in flower pots: mulch, plants, dead leaves, peat moss, etc., even soil it it’s really dry, so it just doesn’t make any sense to butt out cigarettes there. Nor should you toss cigarette butts out of a car window, into a garbage can, in a forested or grassy area or indeed, anywhere but an ashtray. And there are ashtrays in plain view in almost all public spaces and even portable ones smokers can carry with them, so there is little excuse for using plantings as a butt recipient.
It can take up to four or five hours between the time that a cigarette is put out and the appearance of the first flame, so the smoker may never realize they caused the ensuing blaze.
This is all easy enough to fix: cigarette butts belong in an ashtray and absolutely nowhere else. To do otherwise is to risk not only damage to property, but even human lives!