cigarette butts

Puerto Rico Beach Trash Stories: Shoving A Cigarette Inside A Cave Rock

April 15, 2024 by Jivan Wild 2 Comments

Welcome to my blog. I will be sharing my beach trash stories here. For those that don’t know since 2013, I have been the self imposed guardian of the beaches. I would watch over what ever beach or river that I am in. To make sure others take their trash.

On today’s beach trash story, Yesterday at the beach in beautiful Puerto Rico,, a woman arrives with her boyfriend. She was smoking a cigarette. So being the guardian of the beach, I was watching her like a hawk. She came and started posing for the camera as her boyfriend was snapping pictures of her in the water as she smoked her poison. So I got closer because I knew what was about to happen.

Not under my watch

I immediately told her that the cigarette butt is trash and asked if she would like a bottle for her cigarette butt. She tells me, she already put it inside the rock. I reminded her that the cigarette butt is trash and contaminates just like one of my sign reads. That it also contains plastic and chemicals.

Running for a bottle

I then ran to get her a plastic bottle that I am sure to find in some bush and sure enough, I did. I handed her the water bottle and told her to put it inside and to use it all the time She was bewildered. Like why. But she put her cigarette butt inside.

So I the spoke to her boyfriend who spoke English so they could better understand me. I told him how that the cigarette butt contaminates and is trash and that we must care for Boriken and recited my sign, “Today you leave your trash, tomorrow your kids will play in it.

He agreed with me. and we had a conversation about that. I am just hoping he could relay that message and sentiment to his girlfriend. Who really seemed not to care as many don’t. How could a cigarette smoker care about what they do to the world, when they don’t even care about what they do to their own bodies. But I think that it is okay if they want to poison themselves. I truly believe that they need to leave nature and the world out of their bad decision.

Trying to hand me back the bottle

They tried to hand me back the bottle and I insisted they take it with them. Because we all know that she is going to smoke 10 more cigarette butts. She didn’t want to. But her boyfriend took it realizing that she was indeed going to smoke more at the other beaches they would go to. She would have gone leaving a footprint of poison everywhere. I have no doubt that she did and will continue doing so.

I am hoping that this encounter would have an affect on either of them. Hoping they could start becoming the change this island truly needs. Hoping that they start caring more.

But this is why I am compelled to visit the beach as much as I could even with my car falling apart. Why I choose to be the self imposed guardian of the beaches. Nature needs a voice and I will continue even with my trauma from being shot for recording a family leaving thrash, I shall continue. I feel like my presence at the beach and my signs are making a difference.

Use your voice

In closing, I feel like we must use our voice more and speak up more. Stand up for nature and not allow others to destroy it when we could use our voice to educate others.

Here in Boriken, many have friends and family members who smoke and who throw away trash. I am sure their ignorance won’t allow them to hear them out. But those who care should be the ones educating their family and friends and never settling for anything less. If your family member or in this case, girlfriend, throws a cigarette butt, pick it up after them. Help them understand. Because we are the change this world desperately needs. Lets be that change. Stay wild.

Please leave any comments down below. Do you think what I did was right or I should have just said nothing?

Simple Solution For Throwing Away Cigarette Butts

September 11, 2016 by Jivan Wild Leave a Comment

Cigarette butts, the most littered item in the world, with roughly 4.5 trillion being tossed each year. I wrote a blog about the world not being an ashtray, which can be found here. Down below I offer a solution to this problem.

The lobbying group American for Nonsmokers’ Rights (ANR) reported that 1.69 billion pounds of butts ended up as toxic waste last year.

There are over 176,000,000 pounds of discarded cigarette butts in the United States each year.

The cigarette butts present a serious hazard to our natural world.

Contrary to popular belief, cigarette butts are NOT biodegradable! Cigarette butt waste is a huge environmental issue, with a global impact — it is both unsightly and unhealthy.

The butt itself is comprised of two parts: A plastic filter and the remnants of the used tobacco. While the leftover tobacco is by definition biodegradable, the filters are made from a plastic called cellulose acetate, a compound that eventually breaks down but never disappears. Ever. which can take many (estimated 2 to 25) years to decompose. Cigarette butts may seem small, but with several trillion butts littered every year, the toxic chemicals add up!

Combine that with the roughly 4,000 chemicals found in cigarettes, and you’ve got the recipe for a pretty awful eco-aftertaste.

Cigarettes contain over 165 chemicals – Some of the chemicals smokers inhale:
- Benzo[a]pyrene: found in coal tar and cigarette smoke and it is one of the most potent cancer causing chemical in the world.
- Arsenic: deadly poison that causes diarrhea, cramps, anemia, paralysis and malignant skin tumors. It is used in pesticides.
- Acetone: It’s one of the active ingredients in nail polish remover.
- Lead: Lead poisoning stunts growth, causes vomiting, and causes brain damage.
- Formaldehyde: causes cancer, can damage lungs, skin, and digestive systems. Embalmers use it to preserve dead bodies.
- Toluene: highly toxic, commonly use as an ingredient in paint thinner.
- Butane: highly flammable butane is one of the key components in gasoline.
- Cadmium: cause damage to the liver, kidneys and brain, and stays in the body for years.
- Ammonia: causes individuals to absorb more nicotine, keeping them hooked on smoking.
- Benzene: found in pesticides and gasoline.
Plastic pieces have been found in the stomachs of fish, birds, whales, and other marine creatures that mistake them as food, swallowing harmful plastic and toxic chemicals. Ingestion of plastic cigarette filters is a threat to wildlife. Sometimes even young children pick up and ingest cigarette butts.
Wind and rain often carry cigarette butts into waterways, where the toxic chemicals in the cigarette filters leak out, threatening the quality of the water and the creatures that live in it.

Solution

The easiest way to make a difference? Don’t litter in the first place !

We live in an unconscious world where most people are not conscious of this world we live in, we develop and conform to these bad habits as we tend to view it as being normal. Here are my site, I try to offer solutions and ideas to the issues at hand. I don’t have all the answers, but maybe an idea I have can spark another in another person.

Often times when I protested at the beaches here in Puerto Rico, I would carry a sign around stating that the world is not an ashtray.

During the protest, many would ask, well what can I do with the cigarette butts? I would tell them, that beer can you hold that is empty is one viable solution but here is another.

Along with all the cigarette butts that get discarded daily, I notice another trend, people also discard the empty cigarette boxes everywhere as well. Not all people, but I see those empty boxes littered in many beaches here.

So with the many as 10 packs of cigarette that cigarette smokers consume, why not take one of those empty boxes and use it as an ashtray.

Simply, take the empty box and instead of flicking it carelessly all over the place, you instead deposit it inside that very box. Then you empty that box in a proper container at the end of the day and reuse that same box to repeat the process or use one of your new shiny box of the next pack you buy.

We have to start taking responsibility for our actions and stop leaving these negative footprints, the footprints of humanity behind. We should not be used to this way of being. We should strive to improve ourselves everyday so that we can improve the quality of life around us.

I often think that with all these toxic chemicals that are in these cigarette butts that many smokers know full well what they are consuming, that there mentality is, “well I don’t care about poisoning my own body, why should I care about poisoning the rest of the world. ”

I think that is a mentality that has to change.

So I implore you to please discard your cigarette butts appropriately. Please share this with others. Regardless if you smoke or not, many of you have many friends that smoke and stay silent to them littering making you complicit to their actions. Please be vocal and stop accepting this behavior as normal.

WE ARE THE CHANGE.

So cigarette smokers or non smokers, please leave any of your solutions down below on what you do to get rid of your cigarette butts. Do you feel that the cigarette butts are not harmful? What is your thought process when you discard your butts? Please leave any comments down below. Subscribe to my website and PLEASE SHARE SHARE SHARE. Peace, Love, solidarity and FREEDOM!

Smokers : The World Is Not An Ashtray Cigarette Butts Are Also Garbage

September 19, 2014 by Jivan Wild Leave a Comment

Smokers : The World Is Not An Ashtray Cigarette Butts Are Also Garbage

Cigarette smokers I ask you, Do you treat your world like an ashtray because you think the world revolves around your bad habit? Are you not aware that Cigarette butts is also garbage and that it contaminates?

I have been living in the beautiful island of Puerto Rico for the last 8 years and for the last 5 years I decided to be the guardian of the beaches and rivers here as I grew tired of seeing this paradise destroyed with garbage. There is one major piece of garbage, cigarette butts, in which has become one of the worlds top most littered item and certainly here as I find them scattered about everywhere.

I know many cigarettes smokers and they know how I feel about cigarette butts. When I head to the beach on this beautiful island, I put my things down on the sand and look at the beautiful sunshine glistening on the blue crystal waters.

Moreover, I look around the sand, only to find cigarette butts scattered all over across the sand. The shoreline filled with butts that enter the ocean. At the same time, the ocean would then spit them out creating a shore of butts, as the sand transforms into a giant ashtray.

I see kids, playing on the sand and as they play with the sand, the butts become part of their sand castles. They touch the butts, put their hands in their mouths and meanwhile the parents are not aware of the butts all around since it has now become second nature to everyone around. They have grown accustomed to this mess that all you smokers have created.

On average, a person smokes about 10-20 cigarettes a day. Considering there are many smokers. you do the math on how many cigarette butts get carelessly thrown away all over the place. They are out driving, eh just chuck it out of the window. Who cares. Out in the beach, eh, who cares. It’s just another cigarette butt.

“If it’s green or growing…don’t put your butt in it!”

Anywhere they are at they just keep littering and the sad part is that they are not aware that it is litter. They won’t dare throw it all over inside their houses. In one month’s time their bedrooms would look like a disaster, just like how the world is looking with your bad habits.

They keep accumulating all over the place at a fast rate. All these butts would still be around the earth longer than most of these smokers who have thrown them away. Many of the smokers don’t really give a damn. They probably figure, hey I am dying a slow death with all these chemicals, why not destroy the planet as well. Why not kill the other species like the birds or the marine life.

I’d rather kiss a mad cow on the muzzle than a smoker on the mouth.
~Paul Carvel

It is because cigarette smokers are inconsiderate and unaware of the world around them. I am now believing that they think the world revolves around them and their bad habit. They don’t respect their bodies, therefore how else can they respect anything else.

“Over 4000 chemical compounds are created by burning a cigarette – 69 of those chemicals are known to cause cancer. Carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen cyanides and ammonia are all present in cigarette smoke. Forty-three known carcinogens are in mainstream smoke, side stream smoke or both.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t care what you put into your body. What I care about is the planet and the species that inhabit it, that many don’t consider.

Second hand smoke

Speaking about consideration, maybe you should have consideration for nonsmoker’s too as we don’t want none of your second-hand smoke. But you all think the smoke does no harm to no one so you just blow it around people’s faces. I don’t want to breathe in those chemicals. Which is why I always prefer to walk away from people who smoke.

Thank you for Not Smoking. Cigarette smoke is the residue of your pleasure. It contaminates the air, pollutes my hair and clothes, not to mention my lungs. This takes place without my consent. I have a pleasure, also. I like a beer now and then. The residue of my pleasure is urine. Would you be annoyed if I stood on a chair and pissed on your head and your clothes without your consent?
~Sign from Ken’s Magic Shop

Don’t even try comparing cigarette smoke to the smoke of cannabis either. I always walk with a sign at the beach stating the beach is not an ashtray and always get someone asking me, “well what do I do with cannabis”. Well I always put my joint roach in a cup, But I preferably smoke from a bong or a pipe and cannabis is a flower so that means it is natural and will degrade. It does not contain no additives and no chemicals like a cigarette.

To all you cigarette smokers. The world is not your ashtray. If you are going to smoke it, like with everything, be responsible with your actions. If you are so confident that the butts do no harm, please do the world a favor and eat the butts.

“One thousand Americans stop smoking every day — by dying. “
~Author Unknown

Smokers, stop being disgusting. I bet all the cigarette butts that you threw away in your lifetime, would fill your house from floor to ceiling. I for one am tired of sitting on your litter. This island is beautiful, this whole world is beautiful and everywhere we are making it ugly with our bullshit.

Oh and on a side note. I also find many beer bottle caps scattered around. but that’s a rant for another time. People need to grow a conscious and have consideration and respect for this world around them.

My suggestion for smokers:

A lady came up to me at the beach and asked me where should they dispose the butts at. Uh, Simple, you take an empty pack from one of the many packs you smoke and dispose them in there. SIMPLE! Even in the same pack you got them from or again, eat them.

you can find more solutions on this blog I wrote by clicking here.

Do you think cigarette pose a problem the environment? Do you think the world revolves around your bad habit? Are you happy with throwing cigarette butts all around? What are your solutions? Do you find it an annoyance as I do?

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