Cigarette butts biggest scourge along Canada's shorelines

Spiel · August 20, 2008

Cigarette butts biggest scourge along Canada's shorelines

August 20, 2008

VANCOUVER — While the plastic bag is often vilified as the prime polluter of Canada's coast, a nationwide clean-up effort has found that a type of trash many Canadians toss without a second thought is piling up on the country's shorelines.

Cigarette butts — by the tens of thousands — are the No. 1 item recovered during the annual TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup.

Eric Solomon, vice-president of conservation, research and education, at the Vancouver Aquarium, said few Canadians seem to recognize cigarette butts are trash.

“Many people who would never throw, for instance, a plastic bag on the ground, would go ahead and toss a cigarette butt on the ground and step on it and leave it there,” he said.

The annual cleanup was initiated by the aquarium more than a decade ago and TD Bank signed on later as a sponsor.

A recent survey done in advance of this year's cleanup next month shows only 18 per cent of Canadians believe cigarette butts are the top blight on our shorelines.

But during last year's cleanup of shores across the country, volunteers collected well over 270,000 cigarette butts, Mr. Solomon said.

That's 21/2 times more than the next most common item, which was food wrappers.

Mr. Solomon noted it takes anywhere from five to 15 years for the filters in the butts to break down, providing lots of time for clueless birds, fish and marine mammals to mistake them for food.

“Because there's no nutritional value, when an animal eats a cigarette butt or several cigarette butts, they feel full and can actually starve to death,” he said.

The results of the shoreline cleanup survey were released Wednesday and indicate that 49 per cent of Canadians believe plastic bags are the major pollutant on shorelines.

The annual cleanup is scheduled for Sept. 20-28 at more than 1,000 sites across the country.

Last year 50,000 volunteers removed almost 90 tonnes for garbage from streams, rivers, lakes and oceans. This year, organizers are anticipating about 70,000 volunteers will get involved.

Matthew Fortier, regional manager of the TD Friends of the Environment Foundation, said volunteers essentially pick up everything that shouldn't be there, including tires and shopping carts.

“An antique sewing machine was found last year,” he noted.