Modesto High teens tally up toxic trash

Modesto High School students counted something frightening on Halloween: thousands of cigarette butts collected from area parks. Students have collected more than 64,000 cigarette butts around Stanislaus County, part of an effort to have fewer teens become ghosts before their time.

Modesto High’s Protecting Health And Slamming Tobacco club, better known as PHAST, gave up Friday’s lunch period to tally 6,536 cigarette butts before grabbing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and heading back to class.

“It’s crazy to think you can pick up so much in such a short time,” said club member and varsity quarterback Nate Phillips. “You see a lot of children playing at parks. They pick these up and can put it in their mouth. That’s just gross,” he added as he tossed a clump of counted butts into a bucket.

“You don’t realize there’s so much until you’re out there picking it up, and before you know it you’re up in the hundreds,” said Panther wide receiver Will Gallo. “It changes your view. It’s a disgusting habit I definitely don’t want to pick up. Even smokers say it’s gross, but they’re just so addicted.”

About 15 football players in team jerseys joined a half-dozen other gloved counters at tables in the campus quad Friday. Other PHAST members manned a table with information about tobacco and kicking the habit, as different teens have each day of Red Ribbon Week, said President Jaskirat “Jazz” Gaelan.

“If you want to quit, we’re here to encourage and help. Some people want to help their parents stop smoking,” Gaelan said.

Anti-smoking efforts have had some effect, said club adviser Scott Mitchell. “We have seen a little bit of a drop-off the last five years, but there’s a rise in e-cigarettes,” he said.

Though football players at the table scoffed at serious athletes taking up tobacco, Phillips said teens are vulnerable. “They see adults smoking. With our nonchalant teen attitude, it’s easy to get sucked in. This club provides an outlet for kids who think otherwise,” he said.

The Modesto High club has taken off, signing up 122 members this year, Gaelen said. “We had about eight to 10 members last year, but with cleanups and different events we promoted it,” she said. “We made tobacco awareness cool.”

Park days help spread the word to the community, she said. “People see there are teenagers out there who do care,” Gaelan said. “That means the world to us.”

As teens coughed from the dust generated by the butts, a guide dog in training walking by the table turned his head and leaned away.

“It smells pretty bad, doesn’t it, Crawford?” senior Sophie Mesches asked sympathetically. Mesches socializes young dogs before formal training by taking her charges to school and parks, where she has to keep them away from the litter. “Cigarette butts are actually life-threatening to dogs,” she said.

Roughly a dozen teens gather tobacco trash, including highly toxic e-cigarette liquid packets, at each of the park cleanups. Volunteers work about 90 minutes of picking up, then gather for a game of Frisbee or basketball, or just hang out together, PHAST members said.

Friday’s count consisted of 3,001 butts collected from Graceada and Enslen parks Sept. 14, and 3,535 from a canvasing of La Loma Park on Oct. 12, club Secretary Krupa Modi counted, tracking each group’s bucket as they finished a pile.

That brought the Stanislaus County total to 64,114 butts picked up by more than 1,000 students in schools countywide, said Ken Fitzgerald, with the Stanislaus County Office of Education Prevention Programs. PHAST is a project of the county office and the Health Services Agency.

This story was originally published October 31, 2014 at 5:19 PM with the headline "Modesto High teens tally up toxic trash."