No one even vaguely environmentally conscious uses plastic straws anymore (there are valid exceptions, the disabled, elderly or ill may still need to use them).
But for most of us, do so and you are sure to receive filthy looks over the top of your iced coffee. Straws are fast becoming the new fur coats of this generation.
Wear one and you were practically begging a greenie to attack you with a tin of paint. Now it’s the same with straws. The alternatives are super trendy too. You can choose from bamboo, reed, glass or metal, and get a nifty pouch to store them in your handbag.
But straws are so last week. I recently discovered that the real enemy are cigarette butts.
How you may wonder did I stumble on this discovery? Actually I have my 11 month old son to thank. Ruben is in the crawling/ puts everything and anything revolting into his mouth stage. Cigarette butts being his poison of choice!
I must visit Townsend park at least twice a week with my boys and to my horror I have discovered hundreds and thousands of cigarette filters hiding in the grass. Or I should say, Ruben discovers them. It is too revolting.
So now when I go anywhere with him I first pull out a bag and enlist my three year old to help me de-butt the area before we play.
It’s like the star fish story in reverse. I imagine every smoker who flicks their little filter off into the air thinks that the little butt is too small to make a difference – but the combined effect is horrifying.
I did a bit of reading up on the effect all these cigarette butts are having on the environment and I was shocked by what I discovered.
The number one man-made contaminant in the world’s oceans is apparently the cigarette butt.
Since 1986 cigarette butts have been the most collected item on ocean beaches during campaigns organised by The Ocean Conservancy (one-third of all collected items).
Worldwide, about 10 million cigarettes are bought every minute. Upwards of five trillion filters, filled with toxic chemicals, make their way into our environment as discarded waste every year.
Even more nauseating is that the source of the problem, the filter, apparently has little to no health benefit to smokers.
Has that sunk in yet? The number one man-made contaminant in the world’s oceans has no real purpose.
It is simply a publicity stunt.
Thomas Novotny, a professor of public health at San Diego State University is among those campaigning to have the filters banned.
“It’s pretty clear there is no health benefit from filters. They are just a marketing tool. And they make it easier for people to smoke,” states Novotny.
It all started in the 1950’s when the first real fears of lung cancer emerged.
Cigarette designers were initially trying to reduce some of the most dangerous substances in mainstream smoke.
This was when the now ubiquitous cellulose acetate cigarette filter was developed (it looks white cotton but it is actually a form of plastic and takes decades to decompose).
By the mid-1960s cigarette designers realised that they could not get around one big problem: the substance in tobacco smoke that gives pleasure and satisfaction is essentially the same substance that kills you.
The agenda of cigarette manufacturers changed to creating a perception that filters reduced its harmful effects. And it worked.
Even more alarming, studies are now saying that filters actually increase your chances of getting lung cancer.
Filters reduce tar and let more air in, but the increased ventilation and slower tobacco burn result in more puffs per cigarette and more toxic cancer-causing chemicals being inhaled.
Used cigarette filters are also full of toxins which pollute our environment.
Research by Clean Virginia Waterways in the US found that just one cigarette butt in about eight litres of water is lethal to water fleas, a tiny crustacean found in fresh and saltwater.
And those tiny bits of tobacco left attached to cigarette filters carry more toxins than the filters themselves.
Campaigns to rid society of these dirty filters are beginning to gain momentum world-wide.
But more pressure needs to be put on the cigarette manufacturers to create biodegradable filters or simply be done with them completely. Enough excuses already!
Which reminds me of what my mom used to say to me when I began arguing with her as a teenager: “Young lady, no more buts!”
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