Litter on the streets and in the water
The uni’s cigarette problem
Massimiliano Coscia is annoyed.
The PhD student may be a smoker himself, but he makes sure to dispose of his cigarette butts in a proper manner. He throws them in a designated bin, or even takes them home. He sees others behaving very differently, though – especially at the cycling bridge right behind the Linnaeusborg, just outside of university grounds, where students and staff flock to smoke.
Makeshift ashtrays that were there in the past have been removed, so now people just discard their cigarettes on the ground or in the water. ‘Most people don’t even think about where their cigarette butts end up’, he says. ‘Some do, but they still don’t want to walk the extra steps to a bin, while others are completely unaware of the environmental damage.’
He makes a point of picking up the butts himself and knows others do the same thing. But still: ‘It’s frustrating. Plenty of us care, but that’s not enough to solve the problem.’
No facilitating smokers
The problem has grown after the university banned smoking on campus following national legislation. Officially, that was in 2020, but the rules have since tightened. The university is no longer allowed to facilitate smokers in any way, for example by providing cigarette bins. And even though they are not allowed to penalise smokers themselves, they can be fined when the rules are broken.
It has become a habit to drop it on the ground, it’s just more convenient
That’s not just an empty threat: the University of Utrecht has already received two fines. When the University of Amsterdam and Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences stopped enforcing the smoking ban because of the cost involved, they got several thousand euros in fines as well. The UG has not yet been fined, but it has already received a warning for not taking adequate action against illegal smoking.
The result is littering. Butts are being discarded everywhere despite a smoking ban, blue lines marking a ‘smoke-free zone’, and a poster campaign asking people to refrain from smoking.
‘If there is an ashtray, of course, I prefer to put the butt in there’, says history student Mechiel Hoenink, standing in front of the University Library holding a cigarette. ‘Otherwise, I throw it on the ground.’ He won’t use a regular bin, he says, because he doesn’t want to cause a fire.
Fellow history student Andrea, too, only throws his butt in a bin when there’s one nearby. ‘It has become a habit to drop it on the ground. It’s just more convenient.’
Harmful
However, this has consequences that they may not be aware of. ‘People don’t realise how harmful it is to throw away cigarette butts’, says Nils Elzinga with the UG’s Green Office. Even drop pits like those in front of the Heymans Building are a problem, he explains: they may help against littering, but still allow the toxic substances to seep into the ground.
Quit smoking, but if you don’t, at least don’t throw your cigarette in the environment
He refers to addiction expertise institute Trimbos, which cites studies that have shown organisms in aquatic environments are especially affected by this: their behaviour changes, their DNA is influenced, and their mortality rate rises. Seeds also don’t sprout as well in soil that has been polluted with cigarette butts.
Student Jorick, smoking on the curb next to the Harmonie building, does think about where his discarded smokes end up, he says. ‘When I’m outside the city, I don’t just throw my cigarettes into the bushes. The nicotine would leach into the water, which probably isn’t very healthy.’ But, he says: ‘They use street sweepers in the city, so there it’s probably okay.’
And Andrea admits: ‘I don’t really think about pollution.’
Positivity
Elzinga and his colleagues are trying to find ways to really get the message across. They can’t use negative language or shame smokers, since research has shown positivity gets the best results. ‘We ask them: please quit smoking, but if you don’t, at least don’t throw your cigarette in the environment.’
I think some people still wouldn’t bother to use the pocket ashtray
They’ve hung up posters in the University Library and elsewhere that say 75 percent of cigarette butts end up in nature or on the street, and that one butt can pollute a thousand litres of water with heavy metals, nicotine, and microplastics.
And they have pocket ashtrays that people can pick up at the Green Office at Visserstraat 49. ‘Some may argue this approach indirectly facilitates smoking’, Elzinga says. ‘But the idea is to keep smokers away from campus zones while reducing pollution at the same time.’
Facility Support also hands them out at times. ‘So enforcers can make it a positive interaction, instead of just telling people not to smoke.’
Big step
Psychology student Antonia Schlesinger is enthusiastic about the concept. ‘I think they are great. I already have my own pocket ashtray that I use for nights out’, she says.
‘I would gladly take one’, her friend Friederike Kressmann adds. ‘But I think some people still wouldn’t bother to use it.’
Mechiel does in fact have his doubts. ‘It’s a big step to start using it’, he says. ‘Maybe if they’re handed out or made more readily available on campus and at the library, it might be easier to use them.’
How bad for the environment are cigarette butts?
‘One cigarette butt can pollute a thousand litres of water with heavy metals, nicotine, and microplastics’, say the posters the Green Office has put up all over university. Does that mean the ditch behind the Linnaeusborg is full of nasty stuff after years of people throwing their cigarettes in the water?
Wesley Browne, professor of molecular inorganic chemistry, seems like the perfect person to help UKrant find out whether that’s the case. It’s just a matter of measuring the water quality, isn’t it?
Not quite, he says. ‘Measuring the effects of a cigarette butt in nature is virtually impossible, since the cigarette’s trace metals and other harmful components become diluted over time.’ Especially if they end up in water, as is the case at the Linnaeusborg. What he can do, though, is take apart the cigarette itself.
Infrared spectrometer
He starts by looking at the different components under an infrared spectrometer, which shows the composition of the materials. On his work bench are the white paper outer layer, the brown paper part you hold with your fingers, a white fluffy filter and the tobacco.
Nothing special shows on the graph on the connected computer screen when he studies the white and brown paper: these are degradable in nature. Next comes the tobacco. ‘Not that bad either’, Browne says. ‘There are some pesticides in it from when the plant was grown. And there are some trace metals like aluminium, chromium, mercury, lead and nickel, which aren’t too good for the environment.’
The metal concentrations he finds are extremely low, however, so they wouldn’t have that much of an influence on the quality of the water near the Linnaeusborg.
Filter
But then he looks at the filter inside the cigarette. That is modified in the factory, says Browne, as he points at the graph on the computer screen. ‘You can see the peaks for the acetyl bonds over here.’
These modifications turn the paper into something that looks like plastic and is even harder to degrade: it takes over two years. And even then, it’s not even actually gone, but has just fallen apart into microplastics. ‘That’s why you see the filters on the street so much’, says Browne.
Still, he says, the cars driving on the ring road around Zernike are a bigger source of pollution. ‘The catalyst of a car, which filters toxic components out of the exhaust gases, contains metals like platinum that also get into the air. And the atmosphere is already saturated with mercury from old thermometers. That is a much bigger source than those cigarettes.’
Realistic
And although he studies an unsmoked cigarette and the Trimbos Institute points out that burning a cigarette produces new harmful compounds, we should be realistic, Browne argues. ‘The chemicals produced on burning are mostly carbon dioxide and nitrogen compounds’, he points out, and those are present in the air and water already. ‘The plastic wrapper on the cigarette pack is probably more polluting.’
That’s not to say he doesn’t support the Green Office’s campaign. ‘I think everyone should stop smoking and not litter’, he says. ‘But the environmental impact of cigarette butts is negligible compared to other local pollution sources. And the health issues of direct inhalation of smoke are a much more important topic to address.’