THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF CIGARETTE BUTTS?
Cigarette filters are made from cellulose acetate a kind of plastic that takes several years to degrade in the environment. They can take up to 14 years to break apart.
Discarded cigarette butts get washed into the gutter/drains and are carried to rivers and eventually the sea. They leak chemicals trapped in the filter during smoking – nicotine and ethylphenol which are toxic to marine life. For example, one butt in one litre of water can kill small fish and planktonic organisms at one eighth of this concentration.
They are mistaken for food by fish, seabirds and turtles and are frequently found in the stomachs of animals washed up on the sea shore.
They are the most common item of litter collected from beach clean ups.
Apparently 2.4 million butts are on our streets and verges at any one time.
Worldwide cigarette butts are estimated to create 845,000 tons of litter per year.
More than 1 Billion smokers worldwide buy 15 billion cigarettes every day. This figure is expected to rise, this means the amount of litter will rise too.
Do you also know?… That cigarette filters may not even reduce harm to humans from smoking! The 12,000 acetate fibres in one cigarette may also be inhaled directly into the lungs and trigger respiratory illnesses.
(BBC Science Focus magazine. April 2022. Natalie Ryan)