While the planet focuses on the menace of plastic straws, there's been another contender that is creeping up everywhere on Earth. Plastic straws are awful and the corporations, as well as other organizations banning it, are totally right. However, did you know that cigarette butts are the most polluting human-made pollutant in our oceans? According to reports, it turns out to be true.
Our focus and energy are somewhat focused only into one thing. Cigarettes should be the next thing to see widespread bans, and there has to be more public awareness about their awful effect on nature.
On 22nd April 2019 in Brussels, volunteers collected about 120,000 cigarette butts. Almost all smokers dispose of them anywhere and everywhere. Under a tree, into the drains, or simply anywhere onto the road. This minute gesture seems to bear no consequence. However, studies show that the cigarette butt-flicking habit is causing alarm among both human and animal population.
Contrary to what most people believe, cigarette butts contain plastic – cellulose acetate. They also contain around 4000 other chemicals, none of which are biodegradable. Those minute pieces of waste can contaminate vast amounts of water, even 500 liters of it! They make up the very first waste product which is found in our environments. To every smoker out there, try to do your bit and carry a mini-ashtray or dispose the butt into the trash can. The planet isn't your universal ashtray.
Environmental groups, major corporations, and even parts of countries have recently joined the anti-plastic-straw movements.
Global corporations from McDonald’s to Starbucks and hotel chains like Marriott and Hyatt have introduced bans for plastic straws.
Cigarettes have taken over the world like wildfire and are present in practically every space imaginable. But Government regulation or any regulation to their disposal hasn't seen any discussion on it. That, in turn, means that untraceable amounts of cigarette butts make their way into our oceans. Fortunately, there are quite a few organizations and people that are striving to bring light to this matter.
Particularly one initiative the Cigarette Butt Pollution Project, is looking to get cigarette butts banned. They're manufactured using cellulose acetate, which is a plastic type that takes ten years to biodegrade.
There are more than 5.6 trillion cigarettes manufactured in a year with these toxic filters. But the majority of them are dumped irresponsibly.
Another initiative called the Ocean Conservancy sponsors the cleanup of one shoreline every year ever since 1986.
According to Truth Theory, during each cleanup during the past 32 years, cigarette butts are the item which is collected the most. More than 60 million of them have been collected from the beaches on the planet.
All of those butts can account for one third of all the collected waste such as wrappers, containers, bottles, bottle caps, and eating utensils, all combined.
More often than not, people carelessly dump their trash on the beach, and it ends up in our oceans. That waste then ends up in the wildlife as Microplastics.
The discarded cigarette filters contain some hundred or even thousands of synthetic chemical compounds. Not to forget, they're also made using synthetic fibers.
So if you're one that cares about the planet, then urge people to dump their trash responsibly. If you're a smoker, then please do your bit and simply use trash cans to dump your waste. We have only one planet to live in, and we share it with infinite other life forms. Let’s take care of it.
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