BEACH CLEANUP YIELDS BUTTS GALORE DUE TO BAN.Byline: Phillip W. Browne Daily News Staff Writer Storm drains swept a record number The sequential number assigned to each physical record in a file. Record numbers change when the file is sorted or records are added and deleted. of cigarette butts from streets and sidewalks onto California's beaches last year - an unexpected effect of the statewide smoking ban, officials said Thursday. During the 14th annual California Coastal Cleanup Day in September, volunteers picked up 333,876 butts, up 40 percent from 237,709 in 1997. The primary reason for the rise: smokers banished outside without ashtrays, officials said. ``Smokers are now forced to go outside, and if ashtrays aren't convenient, people dispose of the butts on the sidewalk or in the street,'' said Becky Steckler, the Commission's statewide coordinator. ``Water carries the butts into storm drains and right out into the ocean, where currents wash it up on the beach.'' Smokers rights advocates said the results are unfortunate but not surprising. ``Unfortunately, smokers are so (upset with) the bans that they're doing things with butts they normally wouldn't do, like throw them on the ground,'' said Tom Humber Humber, river, CanadaHumber, river, c.75 mi (120 km) long, rising in the Long Range Mts., W Newfoundland, N.L., Canada, and flowing SE then SW, through Deer Lake, to the Bay of Islands at Corner Brook.Humber, estuary, EnglandHumber, navigable estuary of the Trent and Ouse rivers, c.40 mi (60 km) long and from 1 to 8 mi (1.6–12., president of the Arlington, Va.-based National Smokers Alliance. ``We wish it weren't true, but it's one of those unfortunate, unintended consequences of the attack on smokers.''Butts accounted for the largest portion of garbage found on beaches, Steckler said. Volunteers collected 64,915 butts along Los Angeles County's coastline alone, said Alix Gerosa, programs director for Santa Monica-based Heal The Bay. ``People seem to think they biodegrade, but they are made of plastic and they stick around,'' Gerosa said. Butts have been the biggest problem since the commission started keeping cleanup records in 1991, said Chris Parry, the Commission's public education program director. ``It's really disgusting,'' she added. Once they reach the ocean, fish and other sea creatures can mistake the butts for food. They can become lodged in their digestive system digestive system, in the animal kingdom, a group of organs functioning in digestion and assimilation of food and elimination of wastes. Virtually all animals have a digestive system. In the vertebrates (phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata) the digestive system is very complex. and, as a result, they starve to death, Gerosa said. During the 1998 Coastal Cleanup Day, more than 50,000 volunteers scoured the coastline along the West Coast, collecting 789,145 pounds of trash, Steckler said. California Coastal Cleanup Day is coordinated by the Commission's Adopt-A-Beach program and was sponsored last year by Brita Water Filtration Systems. It will be held this year on Sept. 18. For more information, call (800) COAST-4U. Debris found In addition to a record number of cigarette butts, the 14th annual California Coastal Cleanup Day in September found: An identification card from the 1949 Geneva Convention Geneva Convention: see prisoners of war; Red Cross. Voodoo paraphernalia A dead ferret Dentures Winnie-the-Pooh pajamas Two guns A bottle with a large clam stuck inside CAPTION(S): box Box: Debris found (see text) |
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