Stop Smoking, Stop Littering
4.5 Trillion Cigarette Butts are Littered Worldwide Annually
Cigarette butts are the most polluted item on the planet. Help protect the environment by disposing of cigarettes properly and becoming aware of the littering problem.
Take a look down when you walk down any city street. What do you see? Chances are, you will see one item over and over again: cigarette butts. About 4.5 trillion are littered annually worldwide. A cigarette butt littered on land is not just a terrestrial problem: a strong rain will wash that butt into the storm drains and straight into the water system.
As the Earth's population slowly becomes aware of the crisis facing the planet, the cigarette epidemic is gaining notice. Organizations like the Surfriders in California have long tried to clean up cigarette litter from the beaches along the west coast. Cleaning up cigarette litter on a beach is often a frustrating task. One beach clean-up group, the Sand Sifters of Boynton Beach, FL, finds that picking up cigarette butts takes up most of their time.
"During a monthly cleanup, we collect four to five thousand cigarette butts in one day," Founder Gary Solomon said.
That is just one small stretch of beach. Multiply that by the hundreds of thousands of miles of shoreline worldwide and the enormity of the problem starts to take shape. Cigarette butts are not just a benign annoyance. They are made from toxic chemicals. Surfrider.org listed the dangerous ingredients found in a cigarette butt:
- Arsenic: a pesticide that causes diarrhea, cramps, anemia, paralysis and malignant skin tumors.
- Acetone: It's one of the active ingredients in nail polish remover.
- Lead: Lead poisoning stunts growth, causes vomiting, and causes brain damage.
- Formaldehyde: causes cancer, can damage lungs, skin, and digestive systems. Embalmers use it to preserve dead bodies.
- Toluene: highly toxic, commonly use as an ingredient in paint thinner.
- Butane: highly flammable butane is one of the key components in gasoline.
- Cadmium: cause damage to the liver, kidneys and brain, and stays in the body for years.
- Ammonia: causes individuals to absorb more nicotine, keeping them hooked on smoking.
- Benzene: found in pesticides and gasoline.
All of the chemicals seep out of the cigarette butt almost immediately after it comes into contact with water, making it deadly to marine life.
Cigarette smokers appear to believe that tossing their butt out of their car window, snubbing it out on the sidewalk and throwing it into the storm drains are not littering. Perhaps smokers believe that cigarette butts are made of biodegradable cotton. Such is not the case. The butts are made from Cellulose Acetate. The fiber takes years to break down, but it never fully biodegrades.
Keep America Beautiful states that cigarette butts made up 34% of the total litter the group picked up in 2003. Food wrappers were a distant second at 10%. The ban on smoking indoors in many states makes the problem worse. Smokers must discard their cigarette before going inside. If there is no ashtray readily available at these "transition points", most smokers will just toss the cigarette onto the ground.
A few ways people can curb the cigarette litter problem are:
1. Start a cigarette litter prevention awareness campaign in your town. Bumper stickers are easy to make online.
2. SPEAK UP! When you see someone throwing a cigarette on the ground, let them know that it's not OK. Sure, you might be labaled a "tree hugger," but chances are the smoker will think twice before tossing their butt next time. Most smokers are not aware that cigarette butts are litter.
3. Encourage businesses and local governments to provide smokers with ash receptacles at "transition points" like bus stops, store entrances and walkways.
4. For smokers: Use portable ash trays in your car if you use the built-in ashtray for coins or keys. They are found easily online by typing in "portable ashtray" into any search engine. Zippo, the lighter company and pop culture phenomenon, has a stylish model available on their website.
5. Start a beach or litter clean-up, or adopt a highway in your area
With awareness, the cigarette litter problem can be curbed. It just takes awareness and a little effort.
