Butt Flicking ‘World’s Worst’ Litter Problem
Lick Litter by Pounding Butt Flickers!
Think you know about pollution, about litter, about cigarettes and smokers? Ever seen someone smoking while driving and flick a cigarette butt out the window? Or standing on the street smoking and flick one into the gutter? Turns out that billions of people are doing the same thing with trillions of cigarette butts annually!!
The BUTTsOut organization has a few facts on its side in calling cigarette butts the world’s worst litter problem……
1. Cigarette butt litter is the world’s greatest environmental litter problem
2. Globally, approximately 4.3 trillion cigarette butts are littered every year. Smokers in the USA account for over 250 billion cigarette butts, in the UK 200 tonnes of butts are discarded, and Australian smokers litter over 7 billion cigarette butts annually. In most Western countries cigarette butt litter accounts for around 50% of all litter.
3. Almost 1 in 3 cigarette butts end up as litter – see the diagram below from Nolan – ITU to understand where butts are littered and how they impact the environment
4. Cigarette butt litter dramatically increases where indoor smoking bans are implemented.
5. In Australia, NSW smokers throw away enough butts to fill 7 Olympic swimming pools. Up to 350,000 butts end up in Port Phillip Bay, Victoria and waterways every day
6. It can take up to 12 years for a cigarette butt to break down
7. Cigarette butts can leach chemicals such as cadmium, lead and arsenic into our marine environment within an hour of contact with water
8. Cigarette butts have been found in the stomachs of fish, whales, birds and other marine animals which leads to ingestion of hazardous chemicals and digestive blockages
9. Smokers in many countries can be fined for flicking a lit cigarette
10. And the final and most important thing to know about cigarette butt litter is: Only smokers can stop cigarette butt litter. We need to educate them that butts are litter, and provide a positive alternative to littering
