Deadliest Catch for Wildlife? Cigarette Butts and Plastic Bags

Put this in your pipe and smoke it: New research suggests cigarette butts can kill fish.
 
The non-biodegradable and perhaps toxic properties of cigarette filters are just another reason to toss your pack of cigarettes – in the waste basket, of course, not overboard. They're a blight on human health and a drag for wildlife, too.

San Diego State University researcher Richard Gersberg recently published a report that showed that the chemicals in a single cigarette butt can poison fish in a one-liter bucket of water.

Granted, a liter is a drop in the ocean in terms of volume.  But apparently, there are quite a few cigarette butts floating around out there.  According to the an article in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, an estimated 1.69 billion pounds (845,000 tons) of butts wind up as litter worldwide per year.

“Carried as runoff from streets to drains, to rivers, and ultimately to the ocean and its beaches, cigarette filters are the single most collected item in international beach cleanups each year. They are an environmental blight on streets, sidewalks, and other open areas,” states the article by Thomas Novotny of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education University of California San Francisco.

According to a study by the United Nations Environment Program, just two kids of trash – cigarette refuse, and plastic bags and debris – make up more than half of all marine garbage in some parts of the world, posing threats to sea birds and mammals, according to a report in Bloomberg news.

“About 40 percent of the litter in the Mediterranean Sea is smoking-related from butts and wrapping, the UN agency said today in a 233-page report it called the first such study of 12 major seas. Single-use plastic shopping bags should be banned, said Achim Steiner, executive secretary of the program,” Bloomberg reported.

What do you think about this, Bay Daily shoppers?  Are plastic bags a trashy habit that should also be kicked in the butt?

 

 

 

 

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[הזרקת בוטוקס]

This post says regarding carried as run off from roads to pipes, to estuaries and rivers, and eventually to the beach and its seashores, electronic cigarette smoking filter are the single most gathered item in worldwide beach cleaning each year.