Thanks to her wonderful preschool teacher, Miss Ivy, my granddaughter is very conscious of what trash does to sea animals. Fi spent part of her Fourth of July Beach trip collecting cigarette butts and plastic caps and lids. [THE PHOTO TO THE LEFT IS NOT WHAT SHE COLLECTED.] As I helped Fi into the car, she accidently spilled some of her collection on me. As several cigarette butts hit my arm, I squealed ‘Yuck’. I felt like I had a close encounter with toxic waste. Fi said ‘Oh Grandma’ in a way that only a five year old can.
However, based on new research, Professor Novotny at San Diego State University believes that cigarettes should be considered toxic waste and new requirements need to be established for how they are disposed. Billions of cigarette butts end up on our beaches, and in our oceans, lakes and rivers, each year. An estimated 1.69 billion pounds (845,000 tons) of butts wind up as litter worldwide per year. In addition, the annual Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup reports that “cigarette butts have been the single most recovered item since collections began.
SDSU public health researcher Richard Gersberg evaluated the effects left-over cigarette butts have on marine life and found that the chemicals from just one filtered cigarette butt had the ability to kill fish living in a one-liter bucket of water. Yuck. Double yuck.
Nancy
outerbanksharvest
Michelle
