The hulking mass of pale yellow-brown and white—remnants of 50,000 littered cigarette butts—that covered one ton of driftwood in the shape of a stump and fallen tree was too much for bystanders to ignore.
And that’s what Cristobal Valecillos intended.
“When I got the news that billions of trees were cut every year to make cigarettes, that really hit me,” said Valecillos, the Venezuelan-born, Los Angeles-based multimedia artist who created the massive sculpture for the California Department of Public Health’s (CDPH) #NoMasButts campaign, which aims to expose the toll tobacco takes on the environment.
According to the campaign, wood from trees in many developing countries is burned to cure the tobacco used in cigarettes, and it’s estimated that in developing countries it takes one tree to make 300 cigarettes.
In addition to the issue deforestation, every year nearly 135 million pounds of non-biodegradable cigarette butts are discarded in the United States, according to the CDPH.
“That’s insane,” said Valecillos.
The Alameda County Department of Public Health has joined the campaign, and has garnered the support of local environmentalist groups, such as Save the Bay.
“These are toxic plastic trash that’s getting into the bay,” said Beckie Zisser, climate change policy campaign manager with Save the Bay. “People just don’t know, they don’t think about it. They think it’s going to biodegrade, they don’t think it’s going to be a problem in the water, but we know that they stick around for years and that they are toxic.”
During last year’s Coastal Cleanup Day, volunteers collected 294,099 cigarettes and cigarette filters along California’s coast, equaling 110 pounds of cigarette trash. Zisser noted that over the last 20 years, cigarette butts make up roughly 40 percent of all trash collected on Coastal Cleanup Days.
Zisser credits those alarming figures to smoking bans that are pushing smokers outdoors, which ultimately cause cigarette trash to filter into the bay. She’s currently advocating for comprehensive ordinances that would place strong restrictions on outdoor smoking, which Zisser suggests would make the cleanups easier.
“It is a huge environmental problem,” she said. “Cristobal’s art is a fantastic representation of what we’re dealing with and what the environmental impact is.”
Valecillos, 46, debuted his cigarette sculpture last year in Los Angeles, but his work wasn’t always appreciated. Born in a small town near Barquisimeto, Venezuela, Valecillos’ parents shunned the idea of him becoming an artist, preferring that he be a doctor or a lawyer, like his siblings.
“I had to fight for my art, because my family was completely against it,” Valecillos said. “It’s been inside my DNA, my heart. I’ve always been a fighter. And projects like this give me an opportunity to do something good.”
His family appreciates his art now. Valecillos has nieces and nephews who are artists, and has showcased his art in Europe, South America and the United States.
But when it came to his #NoMasButts piece, he was thinking about his planet, and his two children.
“I don’t understand how greed can make someone or a corporation be so selfish,” he said. “And just care about having more money and not care for the planet and for those who are left behind.”