Cigarette butts or filters are also garbage. Apparently smokers in Croatia and all over the world do not seem to know it. And I say that they do not know because I see cigarette butts everywhere I go, on the street, at the children’s park, at the beach and even in nature.
If we ask smokers if they throw trash in the street, maybe they will say NO. So why do we see cigarette butts everywhere?
You need to know
Cigarettes not only cause the death of more than 8 millions people yearly, according to WHO but also are harming our planet, causing a huge damage to the environment and ecosystems.
Did you know that 6.5 trillion cigarettes are sold around the world each year, which means around 18 billions cigarettes per day. Leaving around 2 trillions filters on the street and our beaches each year.
Until now many people still think that filters are biodegradable because they are made from cotton, but this isn’t true.
The filters are actually made of cellulose acetate, and they capture over 4,000 chemicals (nicotine, arsenic and lead), and all those chemicals will be introduced into the environment just by throwing them away.
Waters get contaminated very easily. It will only take a rainfall to wash away all those filters in the street to our sea.
A single cigarette can contaminate around 50 liters of water, according to the Ocean Conservancy, due to the huge amount of toxins substances that compose the cigarette.
As they disintegrate, they become toxic micro particles that at the end up in our food.
If you are a smoker, what can you do to be part of the solution:
- Make sure to put the cigarette in the ashtray.
- Quit smoking.
Unfortunately it has been normalized to throw cigarette filters on the street, we have always seen it and I guess almost nobody says anything. But it is never late to start to do something about it, let’s not forget that we can all make a change.
