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A post shared by ????? ???? (@carly_bergman) on Oct 10, 2019 at 3:00pm PDT

I truly believe most people do not want to hurt animals.

But $300 in ER vet bills later, and here we are: at a beach still littered with cigarette butts that are killing marine life and our pets.

Last week, Paschi (my dog) ingested a cigarette butt. Something that should never happen. She wouldn’t get up for dinner. When we went to wake her up, she was weak, loopy, and lacking coordination. So we rushed to the pet ER, and they identified what happened.

Cigarette butts are toxic and non-biodegradable. Poison, to say the least.

>> It’s estimated that 1.69 billion pounds of cigarette butts become litter each year.

>> Cigarettes contain at least 4,000 chemicals, with about 50 of these being carcinogenic (awful for everyone’s health).

>> Cigarette butts have been shown to leach out numerous chemicals such as heavy metals, nicotine, and ethylphenol into water and may be a continual point source for contamination of aquatic environments after discarding.

>> “Knock-on” effect, meaning these butts kill water fleas and marine bacteria, causing a domino effect.

>> Death and toxicity for our sea life…killing the ocean and its inhabitants.

And if we continue to partake in this dangerous habit, at the very least, dispose of the cigarette butts properly.