Thank You For Saving Sea Life: Smoking Ban on Beaches

by Chris Santiago · 2010-03-25 09:14:00 UTC
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I can't help feeling bad for smokers: There's practically nowhere left in the Western Hemisphere for them to legally light up and enjoy their deadly habit. Now, thanks to California lawmakers, there's one less place for smokers to take a drag — the beach.

If, like me, you're a non-smoking outdoorsy type, this may simply seem like a victory for good taste, making it possible to enjoy California's sweeping coastal beauty (cough, cough!) without worrying about getting cancer from secondhand smoke.

But the most important reason for banning smoking on beaches, according to the Cigarette Butt Advisory Group (CBAG), is much less subjective: Cigarette butts — particularly filters — are really, really bad for the environment.

The chemicals from just one filtered cigarette butt are strong enough to kill half the fish living in a one liter container of water, according to research conducted by Richard Gersberg, a San Diego State University public health researcher and member of CBAG. Marine animals also have difficulty eating and digesting food once they have ingested particles from cigarettes.

Since cigarette butts are the most frequently collected pieces of trash at beach cleanups — 340,221 were picked up in a single day in 2009 — they represent a major threat to marine life. In addition, cigarette filters are made of cellulose-acetate, which is not biodegradable.

CBAG, in fact, argues that cigarette butts are toxic waste and should be regulated accordingly.

State Sen. Jenny Oropeza (D-Long Beach), who authored the smoking ban (Senate Bill 4), based the state law on local restrictions already in effect in coastal cities such as Santa Monica, Malibu, and Newport Beach. Oropeza cited the threat to wildlife as her main reason for pushing the bill.

Now that lawmakers have passed the ban, the bill is in Governor Schwarzenegger's court. Will he sign it? It seems like a no-brainer. Still, it couldn't hurt to send Sacramento an email saying you support the ban on the grounds that it protects not only the Golden State's citizens, but its natural resources as well.

Photo Credit: puzzlement

Chris Santiago is a freelance writer and editor. He most recently worked at McGraw-Hill and "got green" at Oberlin College.
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