Antoinette Taus is shedding light on one of the most littered items in the world: cigarette butts.
Antoinette Taus. Image: INQUIRER.net/Tristan Tamayo
The actress shared a video of an empty lot in Bonifacio Global City (BGC) in Taguig today, March 27, revealing what could be thousands of cigarette butts littering the ground.
Taus, an environmental advocate, said, “The parking lot is not an ashtray. The ground is not an ashtray.”
She stressed that the Taguig lot is only one of “countless locations” in Metro Manila with a similar littering problem. “All this, even with a smoking ban,” she noted.
“As we talk about the horrific effects of #PlasticPollution, people don’t realize that, when it comes to numbers, cigarette butts are actually the most found item during ocean and community clean-ups,” she pointed out.
As per Ocean Conservancy’s 2018 report on its international cleanup drives, cigarette butts were the most collected item, outnumbering straws and other plastic items.
Besides the volume of cigarette butts that need to be cleaned, Taus listed some of cigarette waste’s harmful effects, such as the poisons and carcinogen which affect health and pollute oceans.
She said one way legislators can help is through increasing tobacco tax, which the World Health Organization supports in the Philippines. JB
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