Coastside Land Trust Takes on Butts

The is working on launching a program that aims to reduce the amount of cigarette butts hitting the ground — and the waves — of Half Moon Bay.

“Cigarette butts are the largest polluter in quantity...it’s huge,” said Jo Chamberlain, Executive Director of the Coastside Land Trust. “The difficulty is that when people get out of the car and step on them, they wash into the storm drains, right out to the ocean.”

The program, which would be similar to Santa Cruz’s “Hold Your Butts” campaign, would educate the public about the butts’ ill effects on the environment. Bait tanks, which are a type of cigarette butt deposit boxes, would also be installed in highly-trafficked areas.

“A lot of people don’t realize that a cigarette is basically a pesticide capsule and that everywhere it goes, it leaches and kills,” said Chamberlain. “Animals mistake them for food and there are tens of thousands of them.”

(SOS), the organization that sponsored the campaign in Santa Cruz, has been tracking cigarette waste since 2007 and together with volunteers has collected over 190,000 cigarette butts.

The organization says that this number leads them to believe that the butts are the most commonly littered item in Santa Cruz.

“People don’t know the huge impact cigarette butts have on marine life,” said Emily Glanville, program manager for SOS.

“One butt in a liter of water has been proven to kill a fish,” she said, referring to the results of a study conducted by public health researcher Richard Gersberg at San Diego State University.

Two months before installing the bait tank receptacles, SOS observed where the most cigarette butt litter appeared so they could install the bait tanks in the most highly polluted areas.

SOS installed 18 receptacles: nine in Capitola and nine in Santa Cruz. In Santa Cruz, they installed bait tanks and regular receptacles, while Capitola received bait tanks only.

The bait tanks look like a fish with a shark fin on top. Smokers deposit their butts into a slot that looks like a gill. The front panel reads “Save some fish. Feed me butts.”

For two months after the receptacles were installed, SOS tracked the results. According to Glanville, they observed an 83 percent decrease in Capitola and an 81 percent decrease in Santa Cruz with the bait tank receptacles. The other receptacles in Santa Cruz observed a 59 percent decrease in cigarette butt pollution.

The Coastside Land Trust is hoping to work with the Half Moon Bay City Council to start their own local campaign similar to the one implemented by Save Our Shores.

The Half Moon Bay City Council has not discussed this item to date.

“Whatever is done, I hope that it is consistent at city, state and county levels,” said Councilwoman . “But really what you’re talking about is a change of behavior.”

Added Half Moon Bay Mayor : “I think that (the campaign) is a good idea. However, I think it is going to be a long process of educating the public. It’s a start.“

The Coastside Land Trust is talking about installing the bait tanks at social gathering areas such as the corner of Mill and Main Streets in Half Moon Bay, Chamberlain said.

“People don’t realize that whatever is on the street is going into the creek and then the ocean,” said Chamberlain.

“Our surfers and kids are playing in the ocean with all of that garbage,” she said.

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