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dear smokers
okay i know vaping has been in the news
a lot and for good reason i mean
it's causing a new lung disease but
today i want to address cigarette
smokers about something specific that
kind of drives me insane
and it's this now i'm not just here to
rip on smokers but i do want to talk
about your cigarette butts and what
happens when you throw them on the
ground like there isn't any consequence
because
i see them literally everywhere it turns
out that 75
of cigarettes are discarded on the
ground as opposed to being disposed of
properly
which means that 4.5 trillion cigarette
butts are being thrown on the ground
every year honestly i can't even
comprehend a trillion sometimes but
it would take you 31 000 years
to count to a trillion if every single
number took you one second to say
but put another way it's a hundred and
forty two thousand cigarette butts on
the ground
every second which makes cigarettes the
single most common form of litter on the
planet now before we even get into the
science if you live in a major city
there's usually receptacles for this
everywhere like this one back here where
you can dispose your cigarette but for
some reason almost half the smokers i
know didn't even realize this
and ironically you can usually find
cigarette butts within a few feet if not
right under them so why are we even okay
with this i mean if we saw people
throwing garbage on the ground we'd
probably be like that's
bad but for some reason cigarette butts
get a pass now you might be saying
but it's harmless isn't it biodegradable
and good for the environment
no cigarette butts aren't biodegradable
they're made of plasticized cellulose
acetate which doesn't mean that they'll
stay whole forever
the sun and the elements will break them
down probably over the course of about a
decade
which just means that they end up in the
soil or getting washed up in water and
contributing to water pollution oh and
by the way cigarette filters don't
actually do anything they were created
as a marketing ploy to make people feel
like they were protecting themselves
when studies actually show that they do
not make smoking any healthier
in fact cancer rates have increased
since they began using them but
used cigarettes aren't just wasted
plastics they contain carcinogens like
nicotine and
other toxins like arsenic this not only
has a severe impact on plant and
vegetation growth but one study found
that a single cigarette butt soaked in
water was enough to kill
half of the fish exposed in that tank
one single cigarette butt
and if you won't do it for the
environment or for fish consider doing
it for kids or
good boys like this yeah who are
constantly putting stuff in their mouths
including cigarette butts
cigarettes are also responsible for
around 90 000 fires every year making
them the number one cause for fire
related deaths but it doesn't stop in
your home around
90 of forest fires are also caused by
humans of which some of that comes from
negligent cigarette disposal however
i don't want to place all the blame on
smokers because the truth is that the
cigarette industry has fought
really hard to not be held responsible
for the amount of waste and cost
it takes to clean up and while many
other industries have been assigned
extended producer responsibility which
means that they have to deal with the
mess that their products create the
cigarette industry has avoided this
at all costs and what's worse as places
continue to ban smoking from indoors a
study in britain actually found
a 43 increase in cigarette littering so
look
smoking is your own choice but it's not
the environments
so just be a good person and take
responsibility of your cigarette butts
like you would with other trash and if
there's nowhere to put it right now
just hold on to it until you can dispose
of it properly
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will see you next time for some more
science
see ya