preview

Pros And Cons Of Cigarette Filters

Decent Essays
Open Document

Cigarette Filters or BUTTS? This is a huge problem, but feel we can fix it. This is not only damaging the person deciding to put their own selves in jeparody, but the well being of our whole planet and all of the toxic consequences to it's living things. Cigarette filters are needing to be banned or radically fixed. A legislator from California is seeking to ban sales of filter-tipped cigarettes in that state. Assembly Bill 1504, introduced by Monterey - area Assembly member Mark Stone, would make it illegal to sell or give away filtered cigarettes in California, there would be a big fine for each violation one received(Press Realeases). Here is the problem? Cigarette filters (the butts) leach bad chemicals into the environment. …show more content…

This is also expensive for the communities as they have to spend millions of taxpayer dollars for clean-up. As it stands, human beings do not appear to reconize this problem along with the laws on the books do not address the problem. Sure, there are laws against littering however, it does not seem to have solved anything to stop or even curb the collateral damage of cigarette butts. Worldwide, they think there are about 845,000 tons of cigarette butts discarded each year as harmful liter (News Center SDSU ). They are saying there may be over three billion cigarette butts thrown on the ground just around the San Francisco Bay Area every year alone. The filters are basically not easily biodegradable so the butts pose a long-term threat to wild animals and even small …show more content…

For instance, there may be a enzyme or an organic chemical that can be added to the filter to speed up it's break down into the soil. They could be asked to fund a lab to produce an enzyme that could be added to the making of filters. Try to find a way to make the filters assimilate into the environment as something natural. Perhaps making use of a fungus that is not harmful to the environment, animals and humans that ingest it or live in toxic water areas. This idea can be produced and eventually farmed and provide jobs. Another incentive might be to put a small tax on the sales of “Green Cigarettes” which would help pay for the clean-up of our now littered beaches, lakes, and schools. I asked myself and others, why would there be a filter and yet people are dying from smoking 95percent of filter cigarettes and from second hand smoke? Plus, the actual chemicals it's made of which I read during a trip to a cancer center in UC Davis, where there is over 1,000 or more chemicals added plus the fact the cigarette butts don't break down for many year is alarming. The birds in my front yard are using filters from over ten years ago due to the fact my husband was a two pack smoker and threw them all over the gravel in the front yard and to this day using them as part of their nest. So, maybe there is one good thing coming out of the problem since it keeps the mites away.

Get Access