Save Our Shores: A Story Of Cigarette Butts

The Ban the Butt campaign, banning the sale of filtered cigarettes within Santa Cruz County, has been spearheaded by a local coalition of government representatives and nonprofits, including Save Our Shores, a nonprofit formed in the late 1970s to prevent offshore oil drilling, clean up trash, and subsequently save our shores. From the earliest days of the Save Our Shores movement, the campaign has been focused on advocating for numerous local ordinances to ban polystyrene packaging and plastic bags which eventually were passed on a state-wide level. The Ban the Butt campaign is similar but has its goals set to ban the sale of filtered cigarettes.

Cigarette filters are the single most identifiable item of litter found on our beaches and in our waters with the Save our Shores clean-ups collecting nearly 440,000 cigarette filters between 2013 and 2023 around Monterey Bay. These filters are made of toxic, non-biodegradable plastics that break down into tens of thousands of microfibers that leach lead, arsenic, and nicotine into our environment, bioaccumulating in our marine organisms and wreaking havoc on our aquatic environments. The Ban the Butt campaign and its advocacy for the banning of cigarette filters within unincorporated Santa Cruz County hopes to reduce the number of these filters being littered onto the ground. The issue with cigarette filter pollution is not that people are smoking at the beach and leaving their filters, filters are littered throughout our county and make their way into storm drains and other sources of flowing water where they eventually make it into our oceans. The hope is that by banning the sale of cigarette filters within unincorporated areas of Santa Cruz County we can reduce the number of these filters being littered and making their way into our oceans. Additionally, the campaign hopes that other cities and counties will follow suit with the eventual goal of this being passed statewide.

• Cigarette butts are most prevalent at sites with easy vehicle access
  • people at these locations commonly eat in their vehicle and toss out the cigarette butts
• Additionally, it’s often rivers that are pushing the cigarette butts from land-based activities to the shore

• It’s helpful to know which of these sites is collecting the most cigarette butts

• Inform future cleanup efforts

• Further investigate concerns at particular shoreline locations