Begone Butts

EDITOR: Need a meaningful New Year’s resolution and way to beat the COVID-blues with exercise? Help protect marine critters by patrolling Fort Bragg’s sidewalks, gutters and drains for cigarette butts and other junk.

Begone Butts is a newlyformed volunteer group that walks our curbs and sidewalks to remove butts and other harmful litter like plastic straws, floss pics, colored plastic caps, facemasks, etc. With the rainy season, these float down the gutter and into our street drains, directly to the ocean. All the City has done is place silly metal medallions at each gutter drain telling people not to dump there because the stormwater goes straight to the ocean. It ignored a citizens’ effort three years ago to establish butt containers around town for smokers’ use.

Cigarette butts are not biodegradable. They carry harmful chemicals like nicotine, arsenic, lead, cadmium, copper, chromium, ethylphenol and aromatic hydrocarbons out to sea. These can have serious effects on our prized marine wildlife. At times, the butts are even eaten after being mistaken for a food item. They then become lodged in the throat or intestinal tract.

COVID has taught us we must better care not just for ourselves but our whole ecosystem. Step up and help. Two hours a month. Easy. Healthy. Good for you. Good for our community. You can join us on the ground floor of building this effort. Volunteer by calling 707-937- 0549.

— Rod Jones, Fort Bragg