Growing up many adults in my life smoked cigarettes. I would watch them finish smoking it a throw it on the ground followed by stomping on it. Before I knew of the environmental impacts I didn’t blink twice at this. Now knowing it’s effects it concerns me that people would do this knowing the environmental impact. While I know that smoking is already horrible for human health its addictive properties have held a tight grip on many for centuries.
Pollution is a massive issue within our society and so is smoking. You may ask yourself, what do these topics have in common? Smoking causes the equivalent of 17 million gas powered cars every year. While this may not sound significant if you take into context how many cars exist however, smoking contributes to more than just air pollution. Around 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are littered each year.
Many smokers tend to just throw their cigarettes on the ground or in local rivers. While this may be the simplest manner of disposal it certainly isn’t the safe. Many animals face dire consequences from these littered cigarettes. Animals will swallow cigarettes when they are simply looking for food. Many hunters will find cigarettes inside of their hunted animal. This means that many animals are becoming sick and can potentially die due to choking or the toxic chemicals in cigarettes.
On top of all of this, cigarette filters are not biodegradable. This means that they do not naturally decompose. While the rest of the cigarette is decomposable this process takes a long time. Studies have shown that a cigarette will only be thirty-eight percent decomposed after two whole years. This is a complete and utter travesty for the environment. As cigarettes continue to pile up more and more the contribution to pollution will only rise
Many view the issue as not a big deal or as not worth their time. However, according to the “World Health Organization: each year cigarettes cost eight million human lives, six hundred million trees, two hundred thousand hectares of land, twenty-two billion tonnes of water, and eighty-four million tonnes of CO2 emission” (Ocean Care). This is an unimaginable amount of pollution.
However, there is few ways of safely disposing of cigarettes or at least reducing the harm. Instead of throwing them on the ground you could throw them in the trash or dumpster. You could also turn to cigarette alternatives like e-cigarettes or vapes. This at least makes sure they end up in a landfill and not the street. Another way is by recycling them. While cigarette recycling is a newer concept it is completely doable, it just takes a few extra steps. Companies like Terracycle, can collect cigarette butts via mail and recycle and reuse their components. The components of the cigarette are returned to their raw materials and used to create new cigarettes. W
While, cigarette pollution has been an issue for years many seem to turn a blind eye. This issue only furthers the amount of pollution on our planet, adding unnecessary and avoidable waste to our planet. There are ways to tackle this issue we just need to start to take real action against it.
Work Cited
“5 Ways Cigarette Litter Impacts the Environment.” Truth Initiative, Truth, truthinitiative.org/research-resources/harmful-effects-tobacco/5-ways-cigarette-litter-impacts-environment#:~:text=So%2C%20it%20may%20come%20as,environmental%20impact%20of%20cigarette%20butts. Accessed 28 Feb. 2024.
“Cigarette Butts: Toxic Plastic Pollution.” OceanCare, 2 Nov. 2023, www.oceancare.org/en/stories_and_news/cigarette-butts-pollution/.
“Cigarette Waste Free Recycling Program.” TerraCycle, www.terracycle.com/en-US/brigades/cigarette-waste-recycling#:~:text=Instead%2C%20collect%20cigarette%20waste%20using,or%20large%2Dscale%20outdoor%20environments. Accessed 28 Feb. 2024.