Around the world, smokers buy around 6.5 trillion cigarettes per year which translates to 18 billion per day according to a National Geographic article “Cigarette butts are toxic plastic pollution. Should they be banned?” by Tik Root. Cigarettes are horrible for the environment. The increase of production of cigarettes started when the cigarette rolling machine was invented in the 1800s. Smoking became popular in the 1900s. Most adults at this time smoked around 54 cigarettes per year and by the end of the 1900s, this number rose to over 4,000. At this time, filters and butts of cigarettes were not yet created, but were made to help decrease the health effects. Filtered cigarettes took over by the mid 1900s. Newer studies have shown that the filters in cigarettes do not help one’s health, but continue to harm the environment.
The filters, or butts, are generally left in the street rather than the designated ashtrays or trash cans. The ends of cigarettes are made of plastic. In a cigarette butt: nicotine, metals, and other chemicals as well as the plastic are littered into the environment. They are one of the main things found during beach cleanups and are found in bodies of water. Filters take years to degrade and they break into microplastics which harm bodies of water. The toxic materials in filters also can be harmful to marine life. Cigarette butts are also said to inhibit plant growth. With the growing popularity of e-cigarettes, these also use a large amount of plastic.
E-cigarettes are now one of the largest things found on beach cleanups. They are made up of four main things: a cartridge/pod holding “juice,” a battery, a mouthpiece, and a heating element. Many of these devices are now single use and are built of mainly plastic. Just as many cigarettes have not made their way to trash cans or ashtrays, e-cigarettes and vaping devices have found their way to the streets and bodies of water. Today, it is reported that more than 10 million people in the United States use e-cigarettes. They are also increasingly common in teenagers causing them to infiltrate schools and other areas for children.
A proposal has been made to ban cigarette butts by Tom Novotny. The state of California has been considering banning single use filters. A company by the name of RJ Reynolds has been exploring the possibility of biodegradable filters since the 1970s, but has not made improvements. The pods and cartridges used in e-cigarettes cannot be recycled due to the juices in them. They would need to be properly washed before being recycled, which may seem like a hassle to some. The redesigning of e-cigarettes to use less or no plastic is too expensive and companies are not open to trying it. India has banned the use of plastic in the packaging of all tobacco products. New Jersey created a law that limits smoking and vaping on beaches and in public parks. Even with these changes, people will still continue to improperly dispose of their habits. “I think it’s ignorance of convenience. There’s really no excuse for it” (Cindy Zipf).
Cigarettes have been around for hundreds of years at this point and are not going away anytime soon. Even with new inventions like e-cigarettes, people continue to smoke and improperly dispose of the products they use, harming the environment. This article may seem biased against cigarettes, but cigarettes are not generally something people are positive about in the first place. I personally believe something should be done about the use of these products, but I also believe people will not change their habits. The people that dispose of cigarettes and e-cigarettes improperly will continue to do so.
Work Cited
Whitaker, Hannah. “Cigarette Butts Are Toxic Plastic Pollution. Should They Be Banned?” National Geographic, 18 Oct. 2019, www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/209/08/cigarettes-story-of-plastic/.
