Earth Day and Toxic Butts

One cigarette littered on to the floor is no big deal, right? Many people must think so, because cigarette butts are the number one trash item found on our beaches.  According to International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, an estimated 1.69 billion pounds of trash every year are generated by cigarette butts alone.  Just as cigarette waste can quickly grow to alarming levels, so can the effects.  Cigarettes waste starts on the streets, moves to the drains, and eventually rivers and oceans.  Individuals, as well as communities and cities must change cigarette disposal habits because, in oceans, these cigarette butts pollute the waters and cause life-threatening damage to the plants and animals in the oceans as well.  With Earth Day coming up this Sunday, its important to remember that tobacco use can have deadly effects on the human body, as well as on mother earth.

There is a lot of attention on the cigarette butt problem because of the amount of trash that appears on beaches.  The annual Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup reported that volunteers collected 1,684,183 cigarette butts in the 2007 US Cleanup.  However, cigarette litter is a problem in other parts of our community as well, since the butts come from all places as runoff waste.  Cigarettes from sidewalks, freeways, and patios can end up washing into the storm drain sewers, which flows directly into the ocean.  The claim that cigarettes are eco-friendly because they are composed of paper is false.  While it does take 1 tree to make just 15 packs of cigarettes, the filters in cigarettes are made of cellulose acetate, which is a plastic and not biodegradable. 

Cigarettes are not only dangerous to one’s health but to the health of marine life as well.  The chemicals in the filter, which include nicotine, benzene and cadmium, are the most hazardous to marine ecosystems.  SDSU researcher Richard Gersberg found that the chemicals from one filtered cigarette have the ability to kill fish in just one liter of water.  Imagine the implications, since millions of cigarette butts were found at the 2007 US Cleanup.  

Cleaning up cigarette butts is not an easy task nor is it cheap.  A study from Keep America Beautiful reports college campus cleanups cost an estimated $150,000 for just a single event.  It is important to remember that these cleanup events are not the end-all solution.  The US Department of Agriculture estimates that, in 2007, 1.35 trillion cigarettes were produced in the United States!  Organizers ask for our help to prevent the outpour of waste.  With the Earth’s environment at stake, changing our cigarette disposal habits should be a high priority.  But the larger issue of environmental degradation and toxicity at hand demands a big picture approach.  For a product that kills human lives when lit, and harms the environment when extinguished, it is now more apparent than ever that there are many dimensions to the benefits of going smoke-free.

To find out more information, or how to reduce secondhand smoke exposure in your home, business, or community, email jmonji@canoc.org.