ItB次元官网网址檚 been 30 years since Canada first proposed the concept of World Oceans Day in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Now, every year on June 8 the world unites to celebrate the worldB次元官网网址檚 oceans and to take action to protect them.

On the West Coast of Vancouver Island, the crew at Surfrider Pacific Rim is riding into World Oceans Day 2022 with a surfboard made out of cigarette butts. They hope the cigarette surfboard dubbed the B次元官网网址楧art BoardB次元官网网址� will bring awareness to the most littered item on the planet.

B次元官网网址淚s it ironic to celebrate if we are still struggling to ban single-use plastics and cigarettes are still the most common item collected worldwide? It is amazing to have a World Oceans Day, but we need to put action behind our words and end the billions of cigarette butts that fill our oceans annually. We need to make the tobacco companies responsible for the billions of dollars of damage they have caused our environment and the Canadian government needs to create legislation to force the companies to do so,B次元官网网址� said Laurie Hannah, Surfrider Pacific RimB次元官网网址檚 chapter coordinator.

According to Hannah, the legislation in Canada to address cigarette butt pollution is B次元官网网址渨eak to non-existentB次元官网网址�. She says there is the B次元官网网址楾obacco & Vaping Products ActB次元官网网址�, but nothing that specifically addresses the cellulose acetate filter, which is the plastic that people are inhaling the cigarette smoke through.

B次元官网网址淯ntil the 1950s, there were no plastic filters, these were added as part of a marketing scheme to increase the idea of smoking being safe. Originally made of biodegradable materials, butts could break down within a short time frame - there is absolutely no reason we canB次元官网网址檛 return to this,B次元官网网址� said Hannah.

Surfrider Pacific Rim would like to see a federal ban on cellulose acetate cigarette filters. They are also advocating for extended producer responsibility to be expanded to tobacco corporations to make them responsible for the mass collection, recycling, and cleanup of cigarette butts and all packaging.

B次元官网网址淚t would be nice to have legislative change so we are not just going to be collecting butts until the end of time,B次元官网网址� said Clint Mack, Surfrider Pacific RimB次元官网网址檚 campaign lead for the , a program that collects cigarette butts and recycles them through Terracycle.

Since 2017, 1.2 million cigarette butts have been recycled through SurfriderB次元官网网址檚 HOTYB program. There are a total of 97 canisters on the West Coast for smokers to use, and volunteers on the HOTYB committee collect the butts from those canisters six times a year.

Mack told the Westerly they are coming from a place of non-judgement.

B次元官网网址淚tB次元官网网址檚 just a simple change of human behaviour that takes little to no effort. Cigarette butts donB次元官网网址檛 just magically disappear. If you throw them in the trash, they end up in the landfill, and thatB次元官网网址檚 the whole point of the program is that they are recyclable and can be used to make useful things like synthetic lumber,B次元官网网址� he said.

B次元官网网址淭hanks to the businesses that are involved because they do a great job. We encourage others to join and encourage smokers to take their butts to Ozzard Environmental in Ucluelet, there is a canister there,B次元官网网址� Mack adds.

The B次元官网网址楧art BoardB次元官网网址�, a 7B次元官网网址�0 twin fish board, was made by Ucluelet shaper Jesse Jones. It is CanadaB次元官网网址檚 first official surfboard made from cigarettes.

RELATED:

nora.omalley@westerlynews.ca
Like us on and follow us on .

READ MORE: