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Written by: Bilal Bashir Bhat (Environmentalist)

Category: ENVIRONMENT

Published: 05 February 2019

Today peregrinating towards my office, when I reached near a water body I wait for some time there, after some time, suddenly when I looked around what I optically discern an astronomically immense dump of cigarette butts in the shore of the Waterbody. I feel pain and thinked that Allah has gifted humans a resplendent place to live, but they ravaged it with their own hands.

Thousands of smokers don't think twice about leaving a trail of cigarette litter abaft them. Cigarette butts perpetuate to be the most commonly littered item all around the world today. As an estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are discarded every year ecumenical. Cigarette butt on the ground is one of the most accepted forms of littering, according to the World Health Organization. About two-thirds of butts are dumped irresponsibly -- stubbed out on pavements or dropped into gutters, from where they are carried via storm drains to streams, rivers.

Many chemical products are used during the course of growing tobacco and manufacturing cigarettes, the residues of which may be found in cigarettes prepared for consumption. These include pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and rodenticides.

The core of most cigarette filters, the part that looks like white cotton, is actually a form of plastic called cellulose acetate. By itself, cellulose acetate is very slow to degrade in our environment. Depending on the conditions of the area the cigarette butt is discarded in, it can take 18 months to 10 years for a cigarette filter to decompose.

Used cigarette filters are full of toxins, which can leach into the ground and waterways, damaging living organisms that come into contact with them. over 4000 chemicals may also be introduced to the environment via cigarette particulate matter (tar) and mainstream smoke. These include chemicals such as carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, nitrogen oxides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, ammonia, acetaldehyde, formaldehyde, benzene, phenol, argon, pyridines, and acetone, over 50 of which are known to be carcinogenic to humans. Moreover, previous studies have shown chemicals in cigarette butt leachate can be acutely toxic to aquatic organisms.

Please keep your environment clean and green, as the salubrious environment denotes salubrious human life. Your little contribution may preserve our comely planet as it is the only place for humans to live.