Cigarette Butts: Fish Buzz-Kill

Well, the facts are now out: second-hand butts can kill. This revelation made the rounds in the news about a week ago, but is certainly worth mentioning on our blog.

Guess what, fish dont even have to smoke to join in on the buzz-kill (emphasis on the "kill") phenomenon that is sweeping our oceans. Aside from cigarette butts being the NUMBER ONE most-littered item today, they are also composed of plastic (yep, taking forever to decompose in the environment), and they resemble yummy fish-food morsels (yep, they get stuck in sea animals' bowels, eventually killing them) - well now the experts are telling us that they also leach toxic chemicals, which can harm fish, into the ocean environment...one expert has shown that "Even one butt in a liter of water can kill the fish in a period of 96 hours.". That is pretty crazy.

You can read (and listen to) the article here. You can also Google a gaggle of related articles as well.

...and while you're out there Googling, go to YouTube and search for "Hold Onto Your Butt" to see some vids of our local anti-butt-litter campaign, which attempts to address this very issue.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em...(fish, that is)