In the article "A Little Robot Cleans the Beach, One Butt at a Time"(2021), Gonderman explains that as cigarette litters on beaches are on a rise, BeachBot(BB) which was created by the co-founders of Techtics, Edwin Bos, and Martijn Lukaart helps to counter this pollution issue. Using its Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, BB is able to identify cigarette butts from the ground and collect them easily. The author also described how BB could be playing an important role in protecting coastal environments from cigarette butts(CB). The use of BeachBot on beaches is important as cigarette litter on beaches can cause harm to marine life, depletion of oxygen in seawater, and a threat to humanity.
With so much cigarette litter by the shores, one of the vital impacts in beach pollution would be causing harm to wild marine life. As cigarette butts are being washed into the ocean, toxic chemicals would be released into the sea, sea creatures like fishes or whales might mistreat them as food and ingest it. The article “Abundance and Distribution of Cigarette Butts on Coastal Environments” (2021) by Francisco Asensio-Montesinos studies the causes and impacts of cigarette butts along the many coastal areas. In his findings, he mentioned that out out of the 5000 compunds present in cigarettes, at least 150 were considered to be very harmful to the aquatic environment. In another laboratory study by Micevska et al. (2006) found that CB are extremely poisonous to a freshwater “Cladocera organism” and that the main cause of toxicity was attributed to the toxic substance that can be found in cigarettes, “nicotine and ethylphenol”. This clearly shows that having cigarette litter by the sea possess a great threat to the marine wildlife.
The second impact that beach pollution has caused would be a threat to human health. The beach is a place where families would gather for a picnic outing or an outdoor beach activity. Young children who have not been taught of personal hygiene might ingest the cigarette butts that have been lying on the sand. In the article “Cigarette and Nicotine Chewing Gum Toxicity in Children” (1988) by Smolinske, he mentioned that reports of accidental consumption of cigarette butts are quite common among children, young children might be intoxicated causing vomiting and nausea if consumed at a small dose. Bigger doses might also implicate neurological symptoms as well. This clearly shows that having cigarette litter by the sea possess a great threat to humans, especially young infants or toddlers.
Although cigarette butts’ litters mainly contribute to ocean pollution. I believe that there are other factors that add up to this problem as well. One of them would be plastic. As plastic is a material that we have been using in our daily lives, it comes as no surprise to the huge amount of plastics that would have been disposed of every day. Furthermore, the beach is a place where many families would utilize plastics for their outing, beach users might litter just because they are lazy to walk to the bin. In an article “Marine Plastic Pollution” (2021) by the International Union for Conversation of Nature, it was reported that, “At least 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year, and plastic makes up 80% of all marine debris found from surface waters to deep-sea sediments”. This has caused “Marine species to ingest or are entangled by plastic debris” which results in serious injuries and even death.
In conclusion, not only do cigarette butts play a role in contributing to marine pollution, but plastic pollution in oceans was also another contributing factor in it. For further enhancements for BB, the creators should program BB to pick up plastic trash too, so as to ensure that beaches are kept free of ocean pollution.
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References
Smolinske, S.; Spoerke, D.; Spiller, S.; Wruk, K.; Kulig, K.; Rumackt, B. Cigarette and Nicotine Chewing Gum Toxicity in Children. Hum. Toxicol. 1988, 7, 27–31.
Jason Duaine Hahn, ( 2019 April 30)
https://people.com/human-interest/cigarette-butts-oceans-trash/
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