Essay On Cigarette Filter

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Ecological Effects of Cigarette Litter The sight of burnt cigarette butts spread across a sidewalk is a common occurrence in everyday life. Although it’s much easier to toss a tiny cigarette filter onto the ground than into an ash tray, the effects of cigarette liter can be detrimental to the environment. Used cigarette filters are “a form of non-biodegradable litter” that can only be naturally scrubbed by the ultraviolet rays emitted by the sun over the course of several years (Novotny). Most people don’t think about it, but the thousands of chemicals found in a cigarette don’t just disappear when they’re thrown away. These chemicals have to go somewhere, and when cigarettes aren’t disposed of properly they’re more than likely going to end up plaquing the environment in some way. The chemicals from these cigarette filters can end up leached directly into the water and soil of ecosystems, consequently posing a serious litter and toxic waste issue to our environments. This makes cigarettes an emerging pollutant in desperate need of attention. The amount of…show more content…
Although it’s difficult to imagine a small cigarette filter having the potential to cause so much environmental distress, the massive number of cigarettes that carelessly end up as litter has a collective negative effect. When cigarettes end up in the environment by methods such as run off and deposition, their chemicals are leached by the environment and its organisms are susceptible to its foul effects. It’s vital that society attempt to limit the amount of cigarette litter, which would directly lower these dangerous metal concentrations. There are no active regulations on cigarette pollution control, but hopefully continuous studies on the issue will push for a suitable solution. Scattered cigarette butts along a sidewalk should no longer be commonplace if people want to preserve the environment and the life it

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