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.
Smoking bans have been shown to substantially reduce the litter and therefore the costs of cleaning up beaches and other outdoor areas, as well as to improve the overall appearance and attractiveness of the area.
Cigarettes are poison this planet in several ways, the air with the toxic smoke, out lungs, causing cancer and not even just the ones smoking them, the streets with the buds leftover thrown out. Then there’s the fire hazard, of throwing them out without putting them out. Solution to ending this? Phase out sales.
Unfortunately, it seems that people not only risk their life with every cigarette they smoke, but also affect everybody else who is around. Everybody can be affected by second-hand smoke.
The only issue is that these tobacco companies are not giving back to the government, I don’t mean by just paying taxes. With all the customers they attract, we could use them to give back to their communities! But not the ideas that you would expect. My ideas are a sure way to make the most of the money they spend on tobacco and make the most use of them and remove them from society. Once we complete this, they no longer cause cancer from their smoke, free air of their pollution and stop causing addictions to other things such as alcohol or drugs.
In a clean up project by Keep America Beautiful Campaign 25-50% of all trash picked up was comprised of cigarette butts on roadways and streets. Approximately 1.69 billion pounds of butts wind up as litter worldwide per year (Novotny, et al). In 2009, an estimated 51.2 billion pieces of litter were recovered from roadways in the U.S., 38% of it being tobacco products (Rath, et al). Cigarette butts, which are made of cellulose acetate, is photodegradable but not biodegradable meaning that the sun will break the filter down but it will never disappear until it dilutes in the water or soil which can be toxic (Novotny, et al). Butts can take approximately 18 months to 10 years to degrade depending on the environment it is in ("Are Cigarette
In 2010, 87 percent of the world’s tobacco was grown in the developing world. A modern cigarette manufacturing machine can use up to 3.7 miles of paper an hour. Tobacco plants use more nutrients than many other crops, degrading the soil. Probably the most impact of a cigarette on the environment is the production of them. The land used to grow the crops could be put to better use by planting more trees or food production. Vast quantities of pesticides, fertilizer and herbicides are used on tobacco crops. Some crops require over a dozen applications of pesticides during the three-month growing period. Cigarette butts also do a lot of damage. You might think they were made of cotton, but actually they are often a form of plastic. The polymer acetate filters are comprised of thousands of fibers that can take up to 15-25 years to decompose. The residue from tobacco in the butts also releases toxins into the environment. Trillions of butts are discarded each year. Also discarded cigarettes are a major cause of forest fire in the USA, not to mention fatal house fires. Over 1000 Americans lose their lives a year from tobacco related fires.
With this idea makes it difficult for Congress, according to Public Health Law center "potential impact of recent court rulings on the future of tobacco regulation" (You Don't Say? Tobacco & the First Amendment). The tobacco industry making it difficult for new regulation gives them time to develop a strategy to increase revenue. What these companies are doing to keep a steady increase in revenue are raising prices because of the a declined in products being sold from high taxes and acts such as the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in place (Against All Odds, the U.S. Tobacco Industry Is Rolling in Money). Another main reason it is still gaining revenue is that using tobacco can become addicting with an addiction comes a craving for that thing. These cravings will not stop some people no matter how much taxes and education increase on tobacco. According to the Wall Street Journal "Revenues for U.S. tobacco companies hit $117 billion in 2016, up from $78 billion in 2001" (Against All Odds, the U.S. Tobacco Industry Is Rolling in Money). This is surprising because of all of the negative stigma surrounding tobacco now a day because of the negative stigma with tobacco there is a rise in popularity for
Smoking has become a health hazard to the world today, and there is no better way to settle the problem other than executing illegal smoking. Smoking causes approximately 40% more pollution than diesel car exhaust and is the leading cause of pollution due to its fine particulate matter. Former Professor in medicine, Anthony Rebuck states, “There is a triple threat[danger]… to human health… and it is due to people smoking.” Even though society
Whatever their direct health impact on or benefit to smokers, cigarette filters pose a serious litter and toxic
Tobacco companies make nearly $1 million every hour a day or $24 million a day. Tobacco has been around for centuries, as far back as the american indians. Tobacco was one of the first crops grown for money. The amount of pollution and harm the tobacco and cigarette companies cause every year is alarming. Tobacco is hurting the country through pollution, cancer causing chemicals, and debris of tobacco products. “The cigarette is the deadliest artefact in the history of human civilisation” (Proctor). Cigarettes are harmful to everyone, including the environment, and anyone near a cigarette smoker or someone who abuses tobacco. If tobacco companies do not slow or stop producing harmful products like cigarettes and cigars then they will
We are all quite familiar with the direct negative impact that smoking a cigarette has on a person’s health, as well as the indirect effects of secondhand smoke. However, we often forget or don’t realize how much it harms our environment. When you choose to smoke, you are choosing to hurt the environment. Billions of cigarette butts end up in dumpsters and landfills every year. Many of them also end up littered on the street, in the parks, or on the beach all across the United States. These filters can actually seep nicotine and tar into the ground and water, causing a serious environmental hazard for animals and human beings. They are currently the world’s number one littered item, but there is a solution to this problem. Cigarette butts can be recycled to eliminate unnecessary waste, and can be used to create the plastic benches you sit on at the park. The remaining tobacco in the cigarette filter can be recycled as compost. We need to create an effective and efficient process to aggressively collect and recycle the spent filters nationwide, so we can minimize waste and maximize its renewable potential. The purpose of my research is to identify and examine the disabling effects of cigarettes and cigarette filters on the environment, and propose a plan to address this environmental threat.
How many people can say when there out trying to enjoy themselves they enjoy smelling smoke? I’m pretty sure none of us that’s why I am conducting my research project on how smoking in public areas should be absolutely forbidden. In today’s modern society in America you are free to participate in activities such as drinking and smoking and that’s very significant to have such a freedom. But the issues that most Americans have including myself is that you should not be allowed to partake in these activities around other people without their consent. Over forty two million people in the United States engage in daily smoking with cigarettes. In 2013 there was data taken to show the facts of the average adult in the United States that smokes and nearly eighteen of every one hundred U.S adult ages 18 years and older currently smoke cigarettes. The majority of these people not only smoke but they do it outside and when people do smoke outside they find themselves being respectful to others that are inside and also they will do anything to be able to smoke but still protect the one’s that they love away from second hand smoke which is true but what about the same innocent people we have outside don’t they deserve that same curtesy? The research that I found shows that even when stepping outside to smoke it just makes it worst there are ones of magnates that release around 250 super poisonous gases fumes and chemicals. These same toxins that are released out into the air are the
Every day, millions of people walk through the line at the gas station, drop ten dollars off in exchange for cigarettes, get outside and light one up. Without any conscious thought of what that one cigarette is doing to their body, they smoke many more throughout the course of the day. People often times think and want to quit, but they can’t. They are so addicted to nicotine, and feel like it is an impossible habit to kick. Cigarettes create major health problems for most of the people that smoke them. The costs involved with them are tremendous in various ways, and they are detrimental to the environment as a whole. There needs to be a ban on Cigarettes completely, so many of these issues come to a halt.
To begin, smoking should be outlawed because its effects on the environment are extremely deleterious. Smoking is one of the leading causes of environmental pollution since millions of cigarettes are left on the floor, which ends up in the river. It can then harm waterways, and the cigarettes that get decomposed can have a negative effect on the soil. Nevertheless, trees are wasted in the process as well (“Have Your Say | Should Smoking Be Banned?”). About fifteen billion packs of cigarettes are sold daily, and to produce 300 cigarettes, a tree is wasted in the process. Subsequently, thirteen million acres are used to grow tobacco. Imagine what could be done with those acres, and possibly grow convenient sources such as food, for the poor-beings or homeless (“Smoking”). The U.S tobacco industry produces
It is estimated that 36.5 million adults smoke in the United States of America (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention B). A cigarette contains 7,000 chemicals and 70 of those can cause cancer (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention B). When someone decides to smoke a cigarette, they are not only choosing to allow those toxins into their body but are imposing all those same toxins on anyone around them. Secondhand smoke is the combination of smoke from the burning end of a cigarette and the smoke breathed out by smokers and is considered more dangerous then smoking the cigarette (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention B). Every year 480,000 people in the United States of America die because of cigarette smoking, which is the leading cause of preventable disease and death. Why has this deadly habit become such a casual part of the American life? This habit is not only harmful to the person smoking, but is hurting everyone around them. It may be their decision to smoke and cause damage to their own bodies but when they decide to smoke in public they are infringing on the rights of everyone around them right to protect their health. Smoking should be made illegal because it is not only harmful to the smokers but also causes harm to fetuses in utero, developing children and any other adults who may breathe that smoke in.