Cigarette smoking slobs are polluting South Florida's beaches.

This might annoy some of my visitors but that's the point. They need to be annoyed.

Read this carefully cigarette smokers.

You're an idiot. About the only good thing to say about you is you're killing yourself. Good riddance when that happens.

South Florida groups target cigarette butts on beaches

A massive amount of toxic waste has been dumped on South Florida beaches, and it has nothing to do with oil spills, sewage leaks or any of the usual environmental suspects.

Volunteers in Hollywood next weekend will head out to the beach to clean up cigarette butts, items that deliver a unique dose of toxic chemicals to the marine environment. The weekend after that, at a beach cleanup in Lake Worth, volunteers with the Surfrider Foundation expect to pick up thousands of them.

The Ocean Conservancy says cigarette butts consistently top the list of items picked up in cleanups the group organizes around the world, well ahead of plastic lids, bottles and food wrappers. 

Although many people think of cigarette filters as little sticks of cotton, they actually consist largely of a plastic called cellulose acetate that is not biodegradable. And by its very nature, a used filter is full of chemicals. A study last year in the peer-reviewed journal Tobacco Control found that used cigarette butts were "acutely toxic" to both marine and freshwater fish.

"The filter is specifically designed to absorb the vapors and as the filter becomes wet, they leach toxins," said Nicholas Mallos, marine debris specialist for The Ocean Conservancy. "And recent research has shown a threat to marine life."

Communities throughout South Florida have tried various methods of dealing with them.

At the Windjammer Resort and Beach Club in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, manager John Boutin provides guests who smoke with little metal buckets of sand to take out to the beach. "It's working great, and it's reducing the amount of cigarette pollution we have," he said. "Guests are very receptive. Now they have easy access to an ashtray, instead of using the beach as an ashtray."

Along the beaches of Palm Beach County, the Surfrider Foundation conducts monthly cleanups, where cigarettes are invariably the most common item.

"We pick up thousands every cleanup," said Todd Remmel, chairman of Surfrider's Palm Beach County chapter. "It's sad. Birds and fish and other wildlife are eating these things."

The next cleanup takes place May 19 in Lake Worth. 

It's not just smokers at the beach who are to blame. Most cigarettes tossed onto the ground even miles inland eventually get carried via sewers to the ocean, environmentalists say.

"It's the most littered item in the world," said Stefanie Sekich-Quinn, who works on the issue nationally for the Surfrider Foundation. "It's killing fish, it's lingering in our oceans. Our oceans are turning into a plastic soup."

The Hollywood cleanup, called Kicking Butts Off the Beach, is being held by the American Lung Association, Transforming Our Community's Health and other groups. It takes place May 12 in North Beach Park from 9 a.m. to noon. Their last cleanup in Pompano Beach turned up 2,500 cigarette butts in half an hour.