I had the fortunate experience last spring of joining Green Up Day at Okemo. Honestly, it was a lot of fun - getting outdoors during those few first warm days and soaking up the sun, and of course cleaning away all the trash from a season gone by. Heck, anything to spend a day outside away from my computer right?
Anyway, you wouldn't believe what we found. Dirty diapers (okay, that's gross), ski poles, socks and mittens, some loose change (but not much), the backs of lift tickets ( ALOT!), tons of soda and beer cans... but by far the most?
Cigarette butts. We probably picked up 1,000 butts each (there were about 10 of us, including Tim Mueller himself). The bad news was there were about 500,000 more we didn't. It honestly looked like it had hailed cigarette butts. We could have spent a week just picking them up.
So here is my plea: if you do smoke, I am begging you not to drop your butts on the snow in the base area this year. Pretty please? I don't want to have to pick them up come Spring. I know, selfish me.
6 comments:
I have a good suggestion to solve this: Okemo should do what a lot of companies and businesses are now doing, which would be to ban smoking at the mountain. I ski at Okemo frequently and I hate to see people outdoors enjoying the snow, while smoking. A ban starting Jan. 1st, 2009 would be a great idea, it is catching on fast in the business world! :D
gimme a break buddy... you cant ban smoking outside.... and even if you did, do you think people would really care that theres a cigg ban??? no way!! theres a ciggarette ban on hospital property outside, but i see people smoking right outside the doors to the place with smoke rolling right past the security guy thru the doors... smokers gotta smoke and people who ski and smoke will do just that, regardless... it would be a waste of time and money to try to put a smoking ban @ the MT. you'd have to hire more people to be on the mountian stopping folks from lighting up. you could call the "butt patrol"!!! i smoke and i have a little rubber container i put my butts in when im done on the mountian, but most people dont care cuz its not there state or mountian thats getting dirty anyways... they will be there for the weekend and back to Jersey or where ever on sunday. simple solution--> dont flick butts, grab booties instead!!!!holla!
Banning smoking = lost customers. I, for one, would certainly not come back. I love Okemo, it's a notsalgic place for me being that I spent a lot of time there learning/honing my skills. But, I smoke and want the right to smoke on the mountain. I do feel that it's unfair someone else has to take care of my trash, but if they put up cigarette disposal devices and designated certain "smoking areas" near lodges and maybe certain lifts, then I think that might go a long way to help solve the problem without discriminating against those who smoke.
I agree smoking is bad and it can defile places if not cleaned up.
Instead of being discriminatory (Matt T, I'm looking at you), how about being proactive? Put in cigarette butt disposal units around all the major lodges and designate certain areas as "smoking areas". It won't solve the problem 100% but it will help, and without losing business from smokers.
I, for one, would not visit the mountain if I knew I couldn't smoke there.
I work for one of the big pharmacutical companies that markets products to help people try to quit smoking and as somewhat of an expert on the topic, I must say Okemo is not going to put any dent in the population of smokers if there is a ban on smooking. Quitting smoking is a very complex topic that involves several addictions (physical and emotional dependencies). All of which require a combination of therapies to b esuccessful(eg. drugs, behavior modification, etc).
It's important to be clear on the objective. The original point of the message was to keep the mountain butt free (or as clean as practically possible), not to wage a war on people who smoke.
I say, look for ways to meet the objective ( butt disposale, smoking areas, etc).
If Okemo wants to make a stand to help people quit smoking, there are other ways to do this that will produce better results for the quitters and the Mountain than ban smoking.
Just so we are clear, Okemo is not considering placing a ban on smoking. "Okemomma" was just asking that you dispose of your butts in the disposals provided in and around the base area. Thanks.
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