Stamping out an unsightly pollutant_美文_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Stamping out an unsightly pollutant

Let's not even go into the ramifications to the environment of what happens when these countless discarded stubs become soaked with rain, and the toxins they hold leach into the soil or groundwater.

So, what can be done? Regulating such poor behavior, let alone enforcing a regulation or levying fines, would almost certainly be futile.

What about making smokers pay up front?

Here's my (perhaps myopic) vision: Add a self-recoverable cleanup tax to cigarettes, earmark the funds to rid our streets of cigarette leftovers — basically forcing offenders to finance the cleanup - and pay a per-butt bounty to anyone who gathers these discards and brings them to a designated collection point.

Let's say the tax is a mere 10 percent, which means someone buying a cheaper pack of 20 cigarettes, for between 5 and 10 yuan (73¢ to $1.45), would pay a tax of 0.5 yuan to 1 yuan. At up to 0.05 yuan per cigarette stub, someone who collects 500 discarded butts (which wouldn't take much time along the average Beijing street) could collect 25 yuan.

The beauty of this solution to an ugly problem is that it's loaded with incentive: Though it's unlikely, smokers who can't afford the extra tax might quit puffing (win!) or use that ingenious contraption called an ashtray to collect their own stubs to claim a tax refund (win!). Or, anyone looking for extra cash can collect the discards, thereby cleaning up the environment (win!) and reaping a reward (win!).