[ MOTHER BIRD SPOTTED FEEDING BABY WITH CIGARETTE BUTT ON FLORIDA BEACH ]

When Karen Mason was walking along the shores of St Pete beach outside Tampa, Florida last month, she found a mother bird feeding her young not with a fish, crustacean or mollusc, but with a cigarette butt.

She snapped a photograph of the pair and posted it on Facebook along with the caption: “If you smoke, please don’t leave your butts behind.”

Speaking to Euronews, she added: "Even though one piece of trash may not seem like much we have to start somewhere, and if we take care of our own trash, maybe we will become strong enough to force big industries to take care of theirs.

It starts with caring about the problem, about believing it is a problem."

Cigarette butts are the world's biggest plastic pollutant, with some six trillion butts polluting the Earth each year.

The filters in cigarettes are particularly harmful. A majority of these filters are composed of a plastic called cellulose acetate, which can take anywhere between 10-15 years to fully decompose.

Source: euronews