“A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people. ” ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

                   

“Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,
For strip-mined mountain’s majesty above the asphalt plain.
America, America, man sheds his waste on thee,
And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea.” ~ George Carlin

I have always been amazed by people who pull into parking lots, open their doors, and dump their ashtrays onto the asphalt. What is this? A gift to the cigarette gods? Are the trash fairies going to come along and clean up this putrid pile of pollution? I do not think so . . .

People, it’s just plain nasty, and cigarette butts are a major pollutant on this planet.

Did you know that “about 360 billion cigarette butts are consumed in the U.S. every year¹ and these end up in streets, sidewalks, neighborhoods, college campuses, waterways, lakes, oceans . . . everywhere.” (Toxic Butts)

Reblogged from Curious History:

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Toxic Forest

Depicts 139,000 cigarette butts, equal to the number of cigarettes that are smoked and discarded every 15 seconds in the US. Cigarette butts are the number one littered item found in America’s public spaces including parks, beaches, waterways, and urban environments. This form of litter has far-reaching impacts on the environment: littered butts leach numerous toxic chemicals and carcinogens, contaminate water sources, and poison wildlife. The filters are made of cellulose acetate, a type of plastic that does not biodegrade.

Artist Chris Jordan assembled a digital image called ‘Toxic Forest’ which is exactly how it sounds—it is composed of individual, high-resolution photos of hundreds of cigarette butts that he gathered from various places around Austin and Seattle.

source 1, 2

                   

Is your campus an ashtray?

                   

From the Cigarette Butt Pollution Project:

Did you know that cigarette butts are toxic to marine and fresh-water fish? A single cigarette butt soaked for a day is enough to turn a liter of water a sickly yellow brown and kill 50 percent of fish swimming in it.

For more on the project, click here.

Download a fact sheet about butt pollution here . It’s no joke.

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• Tossing a cigarette butt in Illinois is a crime (wqad.com)
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• What is Cairns Regional Council doing about BUTT LITTER – – – -Melbourne Council is Council’s Environment Local Law requires that all businesses: store waste material, including cigarettes, in an approved container maintain the cleanliness of the area aro (rajcairnsreport.wordpress.com)
• Study documents cigarette environmental hazards (universityofcalifornia.edu)
• Smoke Butts – An Issue Pollutant (esthermeyerlove553dtippery8145.wordpress.com)