At least some of them probably genuinely believe that, and AFAIK it is more or less true for filterless butts. Maybe we should replace some of the gore pics we have on cigarette packets with information about environmental effects …

Where I live public ashtrays are very common in public places. The littering is not as bad as it could be (used to be worse before public ashtrays were common), but lots of people still litter in those areas.

Maybe it’s because smokers already have to make the decision to blow toxic smoke around where other people (most of them non-smokers nowadays) are likely to breathe it in - it’s pretty much an inherently anti-social activity nowadays, so the step to littering your smoking trash isn’t that big. Maybe related to broken window theory?

AFAIK complete amnesia is rarely permanent, so it would probably fix itself most of the time if there’s no serious compounding issues.

Either way, the likelyhood of two missing people in the same general area looking so similar that their family can’t tell them apart visually seems extremely low.