Last Updated on April 24, 2023 by Flavia Calina

Tobacco use is a significant cause of pollution, from deforestation to toxic chemicals leaching into waterways, and cigarette butts are the top item collected on beach cleanups worldwide.

As environmentalists aim to eliminate or curb the most significant sources of ocean pollution, a growing group is taking on the small but ubiquitous cigarette butt. It hopes to link activists focused on human health with those dedicated to the environment.

Education

One of the most important things we can do to address cigarette butt pollution is to educate smokers. This is a huge issue that needs to be addressed because it can potentially cause much damage in the future.

The problem is that many people do not realize that cigarette butts are not biodegradable. They are made of cellulose acetate, a plastic that will not naturally break down.

The plastic will often clog up waterways and wildlife, including marine creatures, and it can leach into waters, potentially killing fish and other sea life.

Butt litter is also a huge environmental concern because it has a negative impact on soil and water quality. For example, a study showed that cigarette butts could degrade water quality within 24 hours by leaching chemicals from the cigarette into the water.

Suppose we educate smokers about the dangers of cigarette butts. In that case, they will be more likely to smoke responsibly and dispose of their cigarettes correctly with the help of cigarette butt pollution project. This will save the environment from harm and protect smokers and their families from the health risks of smoking.

Awareness

Despite efforts to raise awareness about the environmental toxicity of tobacco products, smokers continue to discard cigarette filters in the environment. They contaminate waterways and lakes, poison wildlife and children, and waste tax dollars to clean up and dispose of the pollution.

Unlike many littered items, cigarette filters do not biodegrade and do not break down into smaller pieces that are more easily broken down by the natural processes of soil and water. They also contain hundreds of chemicals, including heavy metals like lead and cadmium, that can leach into runoff water discharged from sewers.

The environmental toxicity of cigarette filters is a complex issue with multiple contributing factors. These include individual beliefs and habits, environmental ignorance, covert littering due to social taboos associated with smoking, and behavioral gaps between intention and action.

A GIS-based model was developed to quantify the spatial pattern of cigarette butt waste and estimate its burden. The model assigns a weight to venues that sell or consume cigarettes or those where higher concentrations of cigarette butt waste may be deposited. These estimates are helpful for cities in estimating cigarette butt burdens and cleanup costs and can be used to support enforcement.

Cleanup

Many of the most successful strategies for tackling litter problems focus on changing behavior. For example, cities in Montreal and Toronto have put restrictions on where people can smoke and instituted fees on cigarettes to fund cleanups.

Another strategy has been to increase access to cigarette butt receptacles. In San Francisco, Surfrider volunteers pick up an average of 6,500 butts at every two-hour cleanup event.

Butts are small, but they can cause serious harm to wildlife, water supplies, and human health. They can leach toxic chemicals into the environment and contaminate fresh and saltwater.

A 2011 study found that a single cigarette butt can poison fish, birds, sea turtles and dolphins. And they may even break down into tiny plastic pieces that harm marine ecosystems.

A new campaign is hoping to change that. A group of committed activists argues that cigarette filters should be banned and that tobacco producers should be held responsible for cleaning up their waste. That approach, called producer responsibility or product stewardship, could also help smokers learn to dispose of their butts properly.

Policy

Aside from education and cleanup, policy plays a vital role in tackling the issue of cigarette butt pollution. Public information campaigns will help raise awareness of the problem and encourage smokers to change their behavior, followed by enforcement and regulatory action at the state and local levels.

The most important piece of policy for tackling this issue is to look upstream at the tobacco industry and the manufacturers. They produce 5.6 trillion cigarettes annually, nearly all containing cellulose acetate plastic filters that decompose over a decade.

These discarded plastic filters wind up in streets, storm drains, and waterways, where birds, animals and fish eat them. They are the most common item recovered in environmental cleanups worldwide, ranking ahead of plastic bottles and grocery bags.

Several policy measures have been proposed to address this issue, but many have yet to be hampered by the deep pockets of the tobacco industry. However, the California Product Stewardship Council supports a bill in this year’s legislative session to ban cigarette filters. Heidi Sanborn, the senior advisor with the California PSC, believes this bill has a better chance than previous bills because of the growing public concern about littering.

Research

Every year, 5.6 trillion cigarettes are sold worldwide. Of those, 80% or more are littered.

As public health efforts to reduce exposure to secondhand smoke indoors push smokers outdoors, the percentage of cigarette butts tossed on the ground may increase.

One of the most effective strategies for tackling the issue is to raise awareness about the problem among smokers and their communities. This will change how people think about butts and help smokers avoid littering.

But before that can happen, we need research to understand the issue and its potential solutions. Our team is working on a study to determine where cigarette butts are most frequently discarded and what can be done.

Other research focuses on developing new products that can break down into harmless materials. 

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