Smoking was banned on the San Joaquin Delta College campus in 2014. With the smoking ban in place, smokers have to go off campus or sneak a cigarette in the parking lot.
However, some still smoke on campus at the bus top facing Pacific Ave. referred to as an “unofficial smoking area.”
With no cigarette receptacles, most cigarette butts end up on the ground.
This is why Isaiah Mayweather, president of Delta Pride, wants to fundraise money to put a receptacle in place.
“Delta Pride is planning on going out in front of the school where the majority of people who smoke are and pick up the cigarette butts,” said Mayweather.
What concerns Mayweather and the Pride Club is the impact cigarette butts have on the environment and how they make the campus look dirty.
“Unfortunately, they [smokers] are leaving a huge litter of discarded cigarettes and it’s becoming a problem,” Mayweather said. “It’s not just an environmental hazard and not to demonize smokers, but it looks bad on Delta.
If you look closely around the bird’s nests, you’ll see little cigarette butts protruding out, because the birds are making nests out of them.”
Calab Cowan, Delta Student, thinks a cigarette receptacle would be a good idea.
“For me, I don’t like smoking. It’d be a good idea, that way there’s like a trash can for them [cigarettes].”
Andrew Ivy, also a Delta student, thinks a receptacle is a good idea.
“I think the plan is pretty good because it keeps the air clean and the ground clean, you know,” he said. “And a lot of people hate the scenery of cigarette butts everywhere, so if they don’t like to see that, they probably won’t come as often.”
Another concern of the Pride Club is that smoking goes on at the main entrance of Delta, the bus stop in front of Pacific Avenue where people walk on and off campus.
Students like Frank Small said it affects his asthma when walking through smoke to get onto campus.
The Pride Club feels a solution to this problem would be for smokers to have an official spot to smoke at away from the main entrance of Delta, as well campus police enforcing the smoking ban rules.
“We’re already a smoke free campus and the school isn’t enforcing that,” Mayweather said. “If need be, they can just send a couple police officers and write a fine, otherwise we wouldn’t have to do this. But we still want to do this, it’s a form of giving back to Delta.”
Members of Delta Pride went to pick up cigarette butts at the bus stop on Oct. 14 and the group plans on doing a cigarette butt pick up every month from here on out.
“Our next cigarette pick up is Nov. 4 on a Saturday, weather permitting,” said Mayweather. “The cigarettes we pick up are actually going to go to the organization we are getting the receptacle from. For every pound of cigarettes, they donate a dollar to cigarette safety.”
This organization is known as Terracycle. They take waste people bring in and dispose of it in a safe way for the environment.