Yet Another Reason to Quit: Smoking Kills Fish

Yes, smoking causes cancer, and is generally perhaps the worst thing you can choose to do to your body. But its other social and environmental effects are devastating too: for instance, around 600 million trees are destroyed every year just to provide fuel to dry tobacco. Which means one tree is destroyed for every 300 cigarettes. And globally, tobacco curing requires 11.4 million tons of solid wood each year. At least 4.5 trillion non-biodegradable filter-tipped cigarettes are deposited annually around the world. The list goes on.

But all those ills are old hat, so let's get to the new one: a recent study has revealed that each of those 4.5 trillion cigarette butts strewn around the world are toxic to fish: a single filter can kill a fish that shares a liter of water with the used butt.

The study by SDSU public health researcher Richard Gersberg has found that the filter, and the chemicals collected in it after a cigarette has been smoked, along with the non-biodegradable cellulose acetate that the butt is made of, are indeed often fatal to fish. As a response to the findings, the Cigarette Butt Advisory Group (yes, there is such a thing) is now lobbying to get cigarette butts to be placed on the national list of hazardous substances.

So there's your new motivation to quit smoking: your butts kill fish. If you're reading this, and you're a smoker, you're most likely aware that it's in your (and the natural world's) best interest to quit—so maybe it's time to do it. For the fishes, at least?

In the interim, as you begin the long painful process of quitting, at least follow these 4 ways to control your cigarette butt waste.

Good luck sir (or ma'am). The fish will thank you.