IT'S A FILTHY HABIT
We Know
.. It's no secret that we smoke cigarettes on occasion. We also hate the habit, (addiction,) and it's byproducts. Pollution of the body is detrimental to our health. Pollution of the environment is inexcusable.
.. We are sensitive to the unthinking discard of butts. Cigarette butts are more than just unsightly. They are poison pills in the environment.
.. A recent post by Mark Powell over at Blogfish alerted us to the damage that these damn butts do to fish. Read it HERE.
.. From the News Center at San Diego State University comes a note about the environmental hazards of cigarette butts and the damage they do to fish, and other marine life.
.. What's this have to do with fly fishing in
Yellowstone National Park? Plenty!.. Last October as we joined the conga line at The Barns Holes we noticed an enormous amount of cigarette butts in the parking areas. These butts are leaching poison into the streamside environment.
.. There's a new crop of them there already this year. We do know one thing - they don't breed.
.. We doubt that
many fly fishers have noticed them, but they are there. We are particularly sensitive to butts because of our addiction. We pick them up. We stash them. We dump them in the trash. Good for us. Maybe not!.. There is a movement afoot to have the damn butts be classified as toxic waste. It's not a bad thought. An estimated 1.69 Billion pounds of butts end up as litter each year. These are the ones scattered by irresponsible smokers. They get concentrated by sewage systems and other mechanisms and form pockets of poison in our environment - even the parking areas at the Barns Holes.
MONEY QUOTE
"Each year, billions of cigarette butts end up on our beaches, and in our oceans, lakes and rivers, based on this new research, we believe that cigarettes should be considered toxic waste and new requirements need to be established for how they are disposed."
.. Just thought you'd like to know what 'butt dumpers' are doing to our fish in Yellowstone National Park.
..