Beach ashtrays snub out dangers to fish life

FORT LAUDERDALE — It gives new meaning to smoked fish.

Cigarette butts are often tossed on the ground, then carried by rain through city streets and into storm drains. Eventually they end up in the ocean, where leaking toxins pose potentially deadly problems for fish and marine animals.

Last year, more than 35,000 cigarettes were found in Broward County’s waterways, and 12,000 were recovered from Palm Beach County, according to the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup report. To cut down on that number, environmentalists this year installed trash cans with ashtrays at piers in Dania Beach, Deerfield Beach, Lake Worth, Juno Beach and Jupiter.

It appears to be working. Since the ashtrays were installed, there has been a 60 percent reduction in cigarette litter on those beaches, said Hannah Deadman, communications coordinator for Loggerhead Marine Life Center, a nonprofit sea turtle hospital in Juno Beach.

In Deerfield Beach, smoker Hector Claudio said he appreciates the move.

Dropping cigarettes on the beach, he said, is “bad for the environment, bad for tourism and bad for children. It’s just not the right thing to do.”

Once cigarettes reach the water, toxins that would normally remain trapped in leftover butts and filters leak out, exposing sea life to carbon monoxide, nicotine, pesticides and other chemicals, experts say. In addition, cigarette filters, made up of small pieces of plastic, are not biodegradable and can be accidentally ingested.

“Cigarette litter continues to be a major threat to our oceans,” Deadman said. “Various toxins often leech out into the ocean and directly impact the immune systems of sea turtles and other marine life, especially over long