Smoker's Litter

I have always had a personal vendetta against cigarettes, with many of my friends being smokers, as well as losing my grandfather to bladder cancer (onset by smoking for 50+ years). Any time somebody lights up, I cannot believe that someone would want to waste their life smoking such a horrific substance. While I've known of the health effects for quite some time, I've been curious to what happens with the dreaded cigarette butt. What harm could such a little piece of paper, filter and tobacco (plus thousands of fillers and poisons) do to the environment? Well as it turns out, it is one of the most littered items in the world.

Tobacco litter represents "32% of all litter in outdoor recreation areas," according to a 2009 report by KAB Research, and "About 95% of cigarette filters are composed of cellulose acetate, a form of plastic which does not quickly degrade and can persist in the environment." Each time a cigarette butt is flicked outside a car window or stubbed out on a sidewalk, the risk of it contaminating the environment is high. Wind and rain often carry the toxic cigarette butt into a source of water, and then the pollution begins. Once the chemicals are in the water, any type of aquatic life can be left to die within their own habitat.

Although it does not take rocket science to understand cigarettes are bad for your health, I do not believe people think of the environmental effects when they light up. In a perfect world, nobody would smoke cigarettes and the environment and water sources would be clear of the contamination, but unfortunately this is not the case. What I hope this post does achieve though, is that maybe even just one person stumbles upon it and decides to take action. For example, with $11 million being spent a year in San Francisco to clean up butts, think of where that money could be allocated to instead! Hopefully one day we can live in a "cigarette-butt-free-world," but this can only be achieved if people start using the appropriate forms of disposal for their cigarettes.