Throw Those Butts Away!
Cigarette butts found behind a local restaurant on Sherman two days AFTER we cleaned up the alleys.
On a recent volunteer effort to stencil stormdrains with the message “Dump No Waste, Flows To Lake,” volunteers also collected garbage. Most of this garbage consisted of cigarette butts. Not only was it unsightly and unpleasant to collect and dispose of, it poses a health problem for our waterways.
Cigarette butts are NOT biodegradable, but are made of “synthetic polymer cellulose acetate,” a plastic that takes a very long time to degrade, only breaking apart after roughly 12 years. Yet within an hour of contact with water, cigarette butts can begin leaching chemicals such as cadmium, lead and arsenic into the marine environment and can also be ingested by animals. Butts are the most littered item in the United States and CdA is a part of this statistic.
In the alleyways of CdA and along the street, cigarette butts wait for rain to wash them away into the lake. Let’s not let our beaches and waterways get polluted by this waste. It is time for smokers to take responsibility of their garbage and dispose of it properly because, it is littering, and it is illegal. Businesses need to put ashtrays out for your customers who are not allowed to smoke inside (thank you for that) so that they have a proper place to dispose of their litter instead of making the area around your business look like a dumpster.
Take Action for a cleaner CdA.
Learn more about how some people are tackling cigarette litter, by recycling butts!
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-06-14/cigarette-butt-recycling/55674502/1
