From Beachapedia
Cigarette butts are the most common form of litter on the planet: 4.5 trillion are littered each year. New research shows that they severely impact plant growth. The presence of cigarette butts reduced root biomass by 57%; germination success by 27%; and shoot length by 28%.
Cigarette Butt Litter
An immature Red billed gull trying out a cigarette butt as food
Over the past 25 years, what is the number one debris item that has been found in the oceans and waterways during Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup?
A – Plastic bottles
B – Food wrappers & containers
C – plastic bags
D – Cigarettes and filters
The answer is D – cigarettes and filters which made up 32% of the total debris items worldwide.
What’s the Problem?
Cigarette butt litter is a major problem at our beaches, in the ocean and throughout the watershed. Cigarette butts discarded in parking lots, along sidewalks and in street gutters miles from the coast inevitably make their way through storm drains, creeks and rivers to the beach and the ocean. Direct litter of cigarette butts at the beach adds to the problem. It isn’t just a matter of unsightly trash and litter. Toxins, toxic chemicals, and carcinogens from cigarettes collect on the filter and are then washed out into our waterways and the ocean. Birds and sea mammals ingest these toxic butts, misinterpreting them for food.
No butts about it. The environmental costs of tobacco products are more than just smoke. They include the following:
- In a study performed by Elli Slaughter of San Diego State University, a single cigarette butt that had traces of tobacco was introduced to a liter of water. This resulted in high toxicity levels, and the death of 50% of the fish in the water. This is the result of one little cigarette butt.
- Cigarettes contain over 165 chemicals – Some of the chemicals smokers inhale:
- Benzo[a]pyrene: found in coal tar and cigarette smoke and it is one of the most potent cancer causing chemicals in the world.
- Arsenic: deadly poison that causes diarrhea, cramps, anemia, paralysis and malignant skin tumors. It is used in pesticides.
- 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 used 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.
- Plastic pieces have been found in the stomachs of fish, birds, whales, and other marine creatures that mistake them as food, swallowing harmful plastic and toxic chemicals. Ingestion of plastic cigarette filters is a threat to wildlife. Sometimes even young children pick up and ingest cigarette butts.
- Wind and rain often carry cigarette butts into waterways, where the toxic chemicals in the cigarette filters leak out, threatening the quality of the water and the creatures that live in it.
What You Can Do To Help
- Educate community members to be responsible with their cigarette litter.
- Provide smokers with an easily accessible, reusable means to dispose of their cigarette butts responsibly and safely.
- Consider local and regional policies designed to significantly reduce the amount of cigarette litter thrown onto the beach by smokers.
- Set examples for others by not littering.
- Volunteer to help organize a cleanup.
- Set a meeting with your local legislature to discuss the problems of litter which comes from cigarettes.
- Buy and display one of our “Hold On To Your Butt” bumper stickers (available at Surfrider’s online store)
- Get involved with a Surfrider chapter Hold On To Your Butt campaign.
Each year more than 1 billion pieces of litter will accumulate on Texas highways. Of those, 13 percent are cigarette butts. That means 130 million butts will be tossed out in Texas alone this year.”
–Texas Department of Transportation
