Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Cigarette butts as currency for homeless

Clean up the city, help the homeless
  (+4, -10)(+4, -10)
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Since most cities spend a small amount of money on shelters that most homeless people don't use anyway, why not use the money to set up a convenience store of sorts where they can buy necessities such as toiletries, clothes, and food… with cigarette butts? This would help clean up the city and help the homeless purchase items they need. Since many cities have introduced recycling bins for households, the aluminum can market is probably less lucrative than in the past. It would also be easier to fit more cigarette butts per cubic inch of grocery cart than aluminum cans.
Gerad, Sep 08 2005

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       [-] for the "Oh I'll just throw this cigarette butt away. I want to help the homeless" attitude that would be created. It encourages littering and cigarette butts can easily start fires. Also it's very derogatory that you would expect the less fortunate to pick up after people.   

       Nice try though. i knew there was a flaw in the logic but it took me quite a while to find it. Welcome to the bakery. I await your next idea.
hidden truths, Sep 08 2005
  

       Where do I begin. (Stops self, and doesn't.)
blissmiss, Sep 08 2005
  

       I like the sound of crispling paper bags, especially in fall. They, inconcert with the fallen leaf carpet, crunching underfoot, make for a concerto like no other. (Walks and hugs arrm's packages crisples, footfalls crunch with every step.)   

       The plastic thing, nah...
blissmiss, Sep 08 2005
  

       I don't know what the business model is here but it seems economically troubled.
bristolz, Sep 08 2005
  

       I wouldnt go looking for butts in the street. I would visit my uncle and aunt who are chain smokers. I can rack up over 150 butts a day, thus giving me enough butts to buy a refrigerator full of food.
Jscotty, Sep 08 2005
  

       Now if you change this from cigarette butts to rats...
Worldgineer, Sep 08 2005
  

       If you come across a packet of 10 woodbines, can you please email them to me.
skinflaps, Sep 08 2005
  

       bun just for the sheer cheek of suggesting that the government would approve this idea. Welcome to the half-b, [gerad]
Mr Phase, Sep 08 2005
  

       Wouldn't slightly poor heavy smokers pretend to be homeless in order to take their used cigarettes and purchase groceries and more cigarettes? Just means we'd have more people filling our inhalings with vileness. Make it the butts of joints and I'll forgive you. I don't smoke anything, but cigarette smoke smells much worse. In fact, why didn't you just simplify this entire idea and make it so that hobos are employed to pick up rubbish?
quaero curvus, Sep 08 2005
  

       /[UnaBubba]/?!   

       <eyes darting around anxiously> Wh-where am I? How long have I been asleep? <leaps up off gurney, sprints four paces across lanolium before colliding face-first with unseen tempered glass door, rebounds backward, consciousness dimming>
Texticle, Sep 09 2005
  

       Funny, bris!
ldischler, Sep 09 2005
  

       So, the next time a homeless man comes up to me, I just toss a cigarette butt at him? That seems rather cruel.
RayfordSteele, Sep 09 2005
  

       Do stubs with [bristolz]'s *Butt Flicking Clay* still attached achieve any bonus points? Seems like there should be a premium for these.
jurist, Sep 09 2005
  

       The idea of a deposit on things like aluminum cans and bottles is to discourage people from discarding items that can be usefully recycled. Cigarette butts? Why not have the homeless allow the non-homeless to urinate on them, when the need arises, so that they may rush back to the urine recycling depot and squeegee themselves off so that they may reclaim the precious ammonia and uric acid that is so desperately needed for things they are needed for. Wouldn't this be less humiliating?
xrayTed, Sep 09 2005
  

       Most cans here don't have a deposit, the homeless collect them and sell them to recycle centers. There aren't as many cans to collect now that many cities have recycling programs (bins provided to homeowners who give their aluminum to the centers for free). Since this cuts into money making for the homeless, cigarette butts was my suggestion for an alternate. Not for recycling purposes, but for cleaning the city. And the homeless wouldn't be required to pick them up, just like they aren't with cans.
Gerad, Sep 09 2005
  

       //There is such a glut of aluminum capacity that recycling actually costs more than making the raw aluminum// I don't buy it. Even in places where there isn't a deposit, you get a good $5 back from a garbage bag full of cans. The recycler wouldn't pay you this if they couldn't get more than that from manufacturers, and the manufacturers wouldn't pay this if they could dig the stuff up for less money. Consumer transportation costs are certainly less than $5 a bag, unless you live quite far from a recycling facility.
Worldgineer, Sep 09 2005
  

       I think Pa`ve's right on this one. In my state the deposit is more about litter control than anything else.
RayfordSteele, Sep 10 2005
  

       Wow, talk about a blast from the past...a [bristolz] comment worthy of a tagline, and references to [UnaBubba] and [Pa ' ve].   

       I feel like a halfbakery archaeologist.
normzone, Dec 03 2014
  
      
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