A single cigarette butt can contaminate up to 1,000 liters of water “in concentrations that exceed safety limits for aquatic life,” rapidly releasing nicotine and more than 7,000 toxic chemical substances into urban drinking water.
The warning was issued by the pharmaceutical company Aflofarm, which estimates that 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are discarded annually worldwide.
As their cellulose acetate filters are made of non-biodegradable plastic, they represent the second largest source of plastic pollution on the planet.
This pollution consumes 22 billion tons of water, destroys 600 million trees annually and costs more than 8 million lives per year, according to the statement, which also warned of the risks associated with this industry’s waste on Spanish beaches.
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“The most vulnerable are also the most exposed,” the report states, citing children and pets.
In the first case, because the chemical residues from tobacco adhere to toys, clothing and surfaces “long after the cigarette has been put out,” and in the second, because ingestion of cigarette butts or contact with the “residual smoke” that impregnates the sand can cause poisoning.
The laboratory proposes five recommendations for dealing with these risks and achieving a “healthier summer for the body and the environment” during the summer holidays, starting by recognizing the automatic nature of the act of smoking, since the strong urge to smoke “lasts only between 1 and 2 minutes.”
For this reason, the pharmaceutical company suggests stopping and breathing the sea air to contain the urge to light a cigarette.
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The second measure is to protect children and pets, avoiding smoking in their presence, and the third and most crucial is to always collect cigarette butts instead of leaving them on the beach, since they are “hazardous waste, not ordinary litter.”
The other two recommendations are to replace the after-lunch cigarette with other routines, such as a walk on the beach, “weakening the psychological association with the habit and taking advantage of the environment to disconnect,” and to seek professional help to quit smoking, since this reduces the risk of coronary disease by 50% within a year and improves lung function within a few weeks.
