Cigarette butts leave toxics in wake

Cigarette butts leave toxics in wake
Fonte: The Mercury News
SANTA CRUZ — While it takes less than a second to flick a cigarette filter, that moment marks the beginning of a long journey for this tiny piece of toxic waste. Each year 4.5 trillion cigarette butts get littered and begin their journey from sidewalks, down storm drains, through waterways and eventually into the ocean.

Cigarette butts are the most common piece of trash found on beaches worldwide and are able to stick around for so long because they’re made of plastic.

“That little piece of plastic is just soaked with toxins so they’re little poisonous bombs,” said Tim Goncharoff who works for Santa Cruz County as a resource planner.

Save Our Shores picked up more than 5,000 cigarette butts between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31.

“When the filters are left behind there’s a threat to the wildlife through ingestion,” said Ashley Blacow-Draeger, who is a policy expert at Oceana, an international ocean conservation and advocacy group.

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