Sonora, CA – Tuolumne County Public Health officials want to snuff out tobacco littering, saying commercial tobacco litter is a big local problem.
According to health officials, California taxpayers spend more than $41 million each year cleaning up trash from tobacco and nicotine products along roadsides. Major cities in the state, like San Francisco and Los Angeles, spend $7.1 million and $19.7 million, respectively, each year to clear up tobacco trash.
In a matter of hours, volunteers in Tuolumne County recently removed almost 4,000 cigarette butts from Downtown Sonora. We reported on that Tobacco & Litter Volunteer Cleanup here at the beginning of the year, where volunteers walked along sidewalks, in parking lots, and near roadways, picking up cigarette butts.
“The nicotine litter is too much for one group to handle; commercial tobacco litter is a big local problem,” say health officials.
Vape goods are also a major issue with a lithium-ion battery—the same rechargeable technology as in electric automobiles and smartphones—but are supposed to be destroyed after one use.
Health officials estimate that if all the vapes Americans throw away each year were placed end-to-end, they would stretch over 7,000 miles—twice across the United States. It makes no sense to throw out a rechargeable battery that could last hundreds of charges after just one use.”
Additionally, the lithium in disposable vapes sold each year in the U.S. weighs 29.5 tons, which is enough to make batteries for 3,300 electric cars. Those finite materials could be used for a clean energy future, instead of being dumped in landfills. However, currently, there is no good way to recycle these devices, as they blend dangerous nicotine or cannabis liquid, batteries, and non-recyclable plastics. Also, the plastic casings will stay in the environment for hundreds of years, advised health officials, explaining that most end up in landfills, where hazardous metals such as mercury pollute groundwater, or as rubbish in our parks, beaches, and streets.
