Eye on the Environment: Coastal Cleanup Day a success
Cigarette Waste Brigade Include USA
A total of 11,846 pounds of litter, or 5.9 tons: That’s the amount of debris collected during Ventura County’s Coastal Cleanup Day last month.
This year's campaign highlighted the problem of cigarette-butt litter to raise awareness of the harm it poses to the environment and motivate proper disposal. Since 1989, cigarette butts have been the No. 1 item collected during cleanups. During the three-hour cleanup this year, 19,020 cigarette butts were collected in Ventura County alone; more than 5,000 were from a single beach site. Other top items collected were plastic bags, food wrappers, straws, plastic bottles and bottle caps.
What makes cigarette filters an especially egregious form of litter is their persistence and toxicity. Cigarette filters are made of a plastic called cellulose acetate, and they do not biodegrade. They slowly break into smaller and smaller plastic pieces, but they never completely disappear from the environment. Cigarette butts are also loaded with toxic chemicals, including known carcinogens that can leach into the environment. They pose a choking and poisoning hazard to young children and to wildlife that may mistake the filters for food. In 2013, American poison control centers received 5,582 reports of poisoning from ingestion of cigarettes or cigarette butts in children 5 or younger.
Butts and other litter found at beaches usually don’t usually originate there. Litter washes in from city streets through creeks and storm drains and eventually ends up on our beaches. The Coastal Commission estimates that 80 percent of marine debris comes from land-based sources.
This waste has also drawn the attention of local activist group Surfrider.
“The Ventura Surfrider chapter launched their ‘Hold on to Your Butt’ campaign in June this year to reduce or eliminate the environmental impact of cigarette butts through education and activism,” said Juli Marciel, a Surfrider member and the site captain for Ventura Promenade Park.
At their regularly hosted cleanups, Surfrider members collect butts, track totals and recycle them through Terracycle, a cigarette butt recycling program. Surfrider uses data to advocate for better enforcement and implementation of littering and smoking laws and extended producer responsibility. More information and ways to get involved can be found at www.ventura.surfrider.org.