No, Plastic Straws Are Not The Worst Ocean Contaminant, Cigarette Butts Are - Forbes

Sept. 11, 2018.

No, Plastic Straws Are Not The Worst Ocean Contaminant, Cigarette Butts Are
 Trevor Nace

While we have all heard the recent push to eliminate plastic straws from popular use, the cigarette butt has largely lost in the shuffle despite being the biggest ocean contaminant.

Plastic waste, especially in our world's oceans has increasingly become a widespread issue. Several international companies, including Starbucks, McDonald's, hotel chains Marriott and Hyatt, and the city of Seattle have all set plans in place to ban plastic straw use.

According to the Cigarette Butt Pollution Project, 5.5 trillion cigarettes are consumed every year, with 90% of them containing a plastic-based cigarette filter. Cigarette filters are made from cellulose acetate, an artificial fiber that takes decades to break down. NBC News reports that two-thirds of those filters are dumped, many of which make their way to oceans and beaches.

Cigarette filters were deployed in the mid-1900s as a marketing campaign by tobacco companies to lessen the growing concern over cigarette smoke hazards. However, they've been shown to be solely marketing tools, not causing a reduction in toxic chemicals from tobacco tar. Filtered cigarettes are no safer than unfiltered cigarettes. While the implementation of filters worked as a marketing campaign, they introduced a tremendous amount of waste with no added health benefits.

In this Aug. 2, 2011 photo, a French tourist put out a cigarette in an ashtray at La Ciotat beach near Marseille, southern France. A small town in Provence has found an unusual way to attract more vacationing families to its sun-drenched white sand beach: ban smoking from one stretch of its Mediterranean seafront, eliminating the cigarette butts dropped by careless smokers that find their way into children's' sand castles or worse, mouths. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon)

With no added health benefit, popular opinion has been growing that tobacco companies should remove filters from their cigarettes and in doing so remove trillions of cigarette butts from ending up in oceans and landfills.

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One of the largest continual beach cleanups, sponsored by the Ocean Conservatory, has been collecting trash yearly on beaches since 1986. In that time, cigarette butts were by far the most collected trash item on beaches.

Cigarette Butts: 2.4 million
Food Wrappers: 1.7 million
Plastic Bottles: 1.6 million
Plastic Bottle Caps: 1.0 million
Plastic Grocery Bags: 0.8 million
While cigarette butts are clearly a large issue when it comes to plastic waste, there remain large hurdles as to who holds the responsibility to eliminate the waste.

Should tobacco companies remove the ineffective filters similar to Starbucks opting to remove plastic straws? Should cigarette smokers the target of litter campaigns and taxed more heavily per pack as they are the ones improperly disposing of cigarette butts? Or should local cities and governments implement bans on cigarette buts similar to Seattle banning plastic straws? As of now, it's unclear who or what will take responsibility to reduce cigarette butt waste.

I am a geologist passionate about sharing Earth's intricacies with you. I received my PhD from Duke University where I studied the geology and climate of the Amazon. I am the founder of Science Trends, a leading source of science news and analysis on everything from climate ... MORE
Trevor Nace is a PhD geologist, founder of Science Trends, Forbes contributor, and explorer. Follow his journey @trevornace.