Cigarette Butt Cleanup

Thirty minutes. That’s all it took to collect this many cigarette butts on the Speed River Trail today, and I only walked 750 meters.

Cigarette filters are interesting because they look innocuous: wrapped in paper and soft, they look like something that biodegrades.

In reality, filters are not just paper and cotton: they are plastic fibers that trap the heavy metals and toxic chemicals that make smoking itself so damaging to organisms. When they are washed off the trail and into the Speed River, they slowly break apart, releasing thousands of microplastic particles and hundreds of gallons of toxic chemical leachate (laden with arsenic, lead, and nicotine) into the aquatic ecosystem.

Because of the highly toxic mix of chemicals cigarette filters hold, a single butt can contaminate as much as 1000L of fresh water. And the contaminants impact not just human health, but can also kill a large number of freshwater minnows and other organisms exposed to this concentrated mix.

For now we are counting how many butts we remove from various areas that would otherwise wash up into the river. Our goal is to eventually set up some collection boxes for cigarette butts so this material can be recycled through Terracycle.