Teens clean up cigarette butts

The collected butts were displayed at Saturday's "It's a Green Day" expo. (The Daily Triplicate/Michele Thomas).

Last week local high school and middle school students picked up more than 4,500 cigarette butts in Beachfront Park.

The students are part of the Friday Night Live school-based program and were working with the Del Norte County Department of Health and Human Services Public Health Branch Tobacco Use Prevention Program staff on the survey.

Twenty-three students joined a handful of adults at the park Thursday afternoon to perform a "tobacco litter survey" of the park. Luckily, the weather was in their favor and though it was cold, it did not rain. After a brief training by Jay McCubbrey, the local Tobacco Use Prevention Program evaluator, the participants all donned rubber gloves and separated into groups.

The entire Beachfront Park area was divided into separate zones, including Kid Town, the Cultural Center, the soccer fields, and parking area along the sea wall. Each group picked a zone and, using search patterns, completely scoured the entire Beachfront Park area to pick up and document every cigarette butt they could find.

The participants were rewarded with a pizza party following the survey in appreciation for all their hard work.

This latest tobacco litter cleanup survey highlights a continuing and disturbing trend about where people are smoking. While it may seem just wrong to visit the park to smoke, the survey shows that the places that see the most activity also have the highest concentration of tobacco litter. Kid Town, where it is already against the law to smoke, had the highest and second-highest concentrations of tobacco litter in two out of three surveys.

Beginning in early 2007, local youth conducted three cleanup surveys in Beachfront Park and recovered 2,980, 3,128, and last week, 4,548 cigarette butts. The most likely reasons for the increased amounts of litter are the lack of clarity in posted no-smoking signs, and the wonderful summer weather that brings out non-smokers and smokers alike.

The solutions may be simple: clearly marking the no-smoking areas in and around Kid Town and for law enforcement to be more stringent on the city ordinance that bans smoking in and around the play area. It is also very important that the public be educated on the dangers of tobacco litter and second-hand smoke.

Throughout California, many jurisdictions are making their parks and beaches smoke-free. In November 2003, Solana Beach near San Diego became the first city in the continental United States to ban smoking on its beaches. Since then, Santa Monica, Huntington Beach, Venice Beach, Marina Del Rey, Malibu, Santa Cruz, Capitola, Santa Barbara and others have followed suit.