Climate activists in Portugal collected some 650,000 cigarette butts and piled them up in the heart of Portugal’s capital Lisbon in an effort to highlight the fact that they do not decompose.
“The main problem with cigarette butts is that they are not biodegradable – they contain a form of plastic and, even worse, a lot of toxins, heavy metals and chemicals,” explained Andreas Noe, the German activist behind the initiative.
According to the World Health Organization, 4.5 trillion cigarette ends are thrown away each year worldwide.
Noe stockpiled the cigarette butts at Lisbon’s famous Praça do Comércio. He said that the 650,000 butts were collected in just one week.
The butts contain a “form of plastic and even worse, a lot of toxins and heavy metals and chemicals. Under the rain all of those toxins are getting flushed out of the cigarette butts and going straight onto the street… and for example, here, we are next to the Tagus River and it leads straight to the ocean” Now concluded.
