We'reall very familiar with the impact that smoking cigarettes and tobacco has on
our personal health. It's even well documented now the effect that passive
smoking can have on the people around us, with measures being taken in more and
more countries to stop smoking in public places. One element about smoking that
is less well publicized is the impact that smoking and the chemicals and
filters are having on our environment and the damage that they're doing to our
wildlife and waters.
It'sall about the Butt.
Cigarettebutts are made up of cellulose acetate, which is a form of plastic. They pose
as big a threat to the environment as other forms of plastic and people rarely
realise just how environmentally unfriendly the simple cigarette butt is.
Thetruth about cigarette butt litter can be alarming.
Thebiggest myth is that cigarette filters are biodegradable. This is completely
wrong. Cigarette butts are not biodegradable in the sense that most people
think of the word. The
cbd flowers ukacetate (plastic) filters can take an obscene number of years to decompose. Many
smokers don't even realize that their actions have such a lasting, negative
impact on the environment.
Cigarettebutts also present a threat to wildlife and have been found in the stomachs of:
Fish
Birds
Whales
Othermarine creatures
Theseinnocent creatures had mistaken the toxic filters for food.
Overtime, cigarette companies have taken great pains to keep their customers in the
dark on this issue. It is very common for highly littered items such as soda
cans, snack wrappers, and fast food containers to have a simple "Please
Don't Litter" message.
There'sno such message on cigarette packs.
Cigarettesmokers need to become more aware and therefore more responsible in their
methods of disposing of these environmental hazards. Some countries are
beginning to encourage this by introducing a heavy fine for smokers who litter
with their cigarette butts in the street.
vaporstore near me Smoking and littering do not have to be synonymous, as manysmokers are not bad people and just don't understand the negative impact that
every thoughtlessly discarded cigarette butt and tobacco filter is having. But
it's not just about the severe lack of biodegradability of a filter or butt.
The filters themselves are designed to capture some of the 4,000 highly toxic
chemicals that are present in each cigarette.
Whathappens after that butt gets casually flicked onto the street, stubbed out on a
nature trail, or abandoned on a beach? Typically wind and rain carry the
discarded cigarette into the water supply, there the toxic chemicals that the
cigarette filter was designed to trap, start to leak out into our rivers,
streams and aquatic ecosystems.
smok shop near me With these harmfulsubstances causing damage to many aquatic life forms and even threatening the
quality of the water. Cigarette butts may seem small and perhaps even
insignificant at first, but when you realise that there are several trillion
butts littered every year, the impact of these toxic chemicals soon add up!
Sowhat's the best way to tackle this serious environmental problem? Of course I'm
going to suggest stop smoking! But if you're not quite ready to quit yet, if
each and every one of us simply takes responsibility for our own litter,
including cigarette butts, then our individual environmental impact will pose
less of a threat in the ways discussed above. No Ifs, no Butts, think carefully
before you flick that butt.
