Get Your Butt Off the Beach!

At first glance, Tamarindo beach doesn’t look that bad.  Its sweeping expanse of yellow sand looks relatively trash-free.  Ro-Ro does a great job of beach-combing for trash every day as he has since Tamarindo was a dirt road to nowhere and More garbage cans are in place now than ever.  Unless you join the Surfrider Foundation at our monthly beach clean-up (NEXT ONE, MAY 31!) on a Saturday morning, you’d never notice the thousands upon thousands of cigarette butts lurking in the sand. 

Cigarette butts, it turns out, are not little biodegradable pieces of paper.  The have paper around them, but they are not, themselves, made of paper.  I quote from the website of the Earth Resource Foundation, at www.earthresource.org:

“Cigarette butts are composed of cellulose acetate, a form of plastic, which can take many years to decompose. Cigarette butts may seem small, but with several trillion butts littered every year, the toxic chemicals add up! Cigarettes contain over 165 chemicals”…(among which are)… 

“Benzo[a]pyrene: found in coal tar and cigarette smoke and it is one of the most potent cancer causing chemical in the world.  

Arsenic: deadly poison that causes diarrhea, cramps, anemia, paralysis and malignant skin tumors. It is used in  pesticides.

Acetone: It's one of the active ingredients in nail polish remover.

Lead: Lead poisoning stunts growth, causes vomiting, and causes brain damage.

Formaldehyde: causes cancer, can damage lungs, skin, and digestive systems. Embalmers use it to preserve dead bodies.

Toluene: highly toxic, commonly use as an ingredient in paint thinner.

Butane: highly flammable butane is one of the key components in gasoline.

Cadmium: cause damage to the liver, kidneys and brain, and stays in the body for years.

Ammonia: causes individuals to absorb more nicotine, keeping them hooked on smoking.

Benzene: found in pesticides and gasoline.”

An organization called Tree Hugger at www.treehugger.com informs us that, “Traditional butts are made of “synthetic polymer cellulose acetate” and never degrade, only breaking apart after roughly 12 years.”

I didn’t bother to search out a special quote about how this is not good for marine life!  Toxic cigarette butts have been found in the intestines of all kinds of sea animals from fish to birds.  Even cigarette butts that aren’t swallowed by an animal release toxins into the sand and water. 

We as the Surfrider Foundation would like to challenge you:

If you smoke – don’t leave your butts on the beach.  Even though they are practically invisible, they are just as harmful as or more harmful than easily visible trash.

If own or manage a beach front business – provide ashtrays for your clients and information about the harm cigarette butts cause to a marine environment.  Many people are ignorant about these facts and will want to comply!

If you own, manage or work at a beach-front business – adopt a few meters of sand!  Send someone or go out there yourself once a day and pick up cigarette butts.  Thousands of micro-organisms will thank you for it and you’ll feel better for your fresh fish dinner!

If you love the ocean and her children – take a close look and you will be amazed.  Every place where people tend to gather we leave trash in our wake.  Whether you smoke or not, bend over and grab some butts.

The fish have no capacity to enjoy a nicotine buzz.