The issue I have decided to explore is litter. Ooooh, you’re thinking, how original (sarcastically at that). However, I am going to be focusing on cigarette butts and how people don’t regard them as trash. Originally, I was debating on researching and attempting to help remedy either bee colony depletion or the widespread loss of monarch butterflies. Thankfully, I was walking back from class one day and saw a street corner absolutely littered with cigarette butts. It made me think about why people think it is okay to just throw those wherever they please. I think this impacted me the most because I realized how people think cigarette butts aren’t bad for the environment, so they simply throw them wherever, regardless of the proximity of a receptacle. I did a little bit of research on litter and cigarette butts and I found out that cigarettes make up nearly 38 percent of all collected litter1. This means an estimated 1.69 billion pounds of cigarette butts “wind up as toxic trash” a year2.
I think the hardest part about this project is going to be spreading the word. Throwing cigarette butts on the ground is such a common practice among the 5.6 trillion, and counting, smokers world wide3. I think word of mouth and social media could be very helpful in this aspect of getting the word out. I also think that to effectively explore my issue I will simply need a computer. It’s amazing how much can be done on this. I can’t wait for the future steps of this experiment and I am really going to try to make a difference.