Harsh Facts & Ecofriendly Economics: Buy with a Conscience

Harsh Facts

Cigarettes are well known for their ability to cause major health issues, ranging from asthma, to cancer, and even to death. We are warned not smoke around our young children to prevent the negative effects of secondhand smoke, and students are taught to avoid tobacco products in school. However, cigarettes have another dangerous side effect that isn’t well known; pollution.

Worldwide, smokers discard 4.5 trillion cigarette butts each year.

Discarded cigarette butts enter our storm drains, and then watersheds, and from there they can potentially travel all the way to the ocean.

Every cigarette butt can contain up to sixty known carcinogens including arsenic, formaldehyde, chromium and lead. There are 1,400 potential chemical additives.

Nicotine has been shown to be lethal to species of fish, crustaceans, zooplankton, and other aquatic organisms.

Cigarette filters are also composed of cellulose acetate, a form of plastic that remains in the environment for long periods of time without breaking down.

For the past eight years (as of 1999), cigarette butts have been the leading item found during the International Coastal Cleanup Project, accounting for nearly one in every five items collected.

Do you smoke? If you are unable to quit, discard of your cigarette butts responsibly. Consider writing to tobacco companies to ask them to address the environmental impact of cigarettes, and consider writing to your local government to take cigarette litter seriously.

Weekly Green Challenge: Eating with a Conscience

As I’ve mentioned before on Viridorari, I am a humaneitarian (not the same thing as a humanitarian). What exactly does that mean?

For me, it means that I understand the horrible truths about the farming industry, and I’m refusing to support it. I watched a gut-wrenching video about how animals are treated from birth until death in industrial farms, with actual footage from actual farms, and I saw images that I’ll never be able to forget. After my gruesome enlightenment, I committed myself to using my consumer power to support farms that raise animals the right way, and I became a humaneitarian.

I only eat meat products that are organic, Certified Humane, or both, because I can trust that these products came from farms where animals are free-range and cage-free, fed a proper diet,  not injected with hormones (which are unhealthy for both the animals and us), and cared for properly. I also eat meat that has been hunted, like venison, because that animal was never influenced by humans until the day it was killed by a hunter. When these products are unavailable, which is often, I simply don’t eat meat. So, for a large percentage of my time, I’m a vegetarian, and I often describe myself as such to make the explanation simpler. Fortunately, organic and Certified Humane products are becoming more readily available all the time as consumer demand increases and the public becomes more conscientious about where their food comes from. Consumer power is a real force, and it’s working right now.

I know how annoying “militant” vegetarians can be (trust me, I’ve had run-ins with a few). I am not a militant vegetarian, nor am I asking you to become a vegetarian for this week’s Green Challenge. Vegetarianism is very much a lifestyle, and it’s a choice you have to make for yourself, not one that someone else can make for you. 

For this week’s “Green Challenge”, I want to introduce you to two concepts: buying local and “Meatless Mondays.”