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fork(2) [soylentnews.org] writes:

      ScienceDaily [sciencedaily.com] reports on yet another threat to the beleaguered marine environment...almost 5 trillion cigarette butts annually.

Littered cigarette butts may be an important source of metal contaminants leaching into the marine environment and potentially entering the food chain, suggests research published online in the journal Tobacco Control.

Cigarette butts are the most common form of litter found in the marine environment, with an estimated 5 trillion or so discarded outdoors around the globe every year. Previous research has also suggested that metals can leach from cigarette butts.

To gain an understanding of the potential implications, levels of metals in cigarette butts were monitored at nine different locations along the north part of the Persian Gulf in the Bushehr seaport coastal areas during the summer of 2015.

The metals assessed included cadmium (Cd), iron (Fe), arsenic (As) nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn) and manganese (Mn) from discarded cigarette butts in the top 10 cm of sediment and deposited at the tidal mark on the beaches.

The response of animal and plant life to metal content is highly variable, they point out. "Whereas elevated concentration of heavy and trace metals in water and soils can adversely affect some species, contamination may increase the metal tolerance of other organisms," they write.

      The paper, "Association of metals (Cd, Fe, As, Ni, Cu, Zn and Mn) with cigarette butts in northern part of the Persian Gulf" appears in the journal Tobacco Control [bmj.com].

Original Submission