Cigarette Butt
Smokers around the world buy roughly 6.5 trillion cigarettes each year.
Cigarette Butts
Cigarette Butt Pollution
Smokers around the world buy roughly 6.5 trillion cigarettes each year.
That’s 18 billion every day.
While most of a cigarette’s innards and paper wrapping disintegrate when smoked, not everything gets burned.
Trillions of cigarette filters—also known as butts or ends—are left over, only an estimated third of which make it into the trash.
The rest are casually flung into the street or out a window.
“There's something about flicking that cigarette butt,” says Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action. “It's so automatic.”
Cigarette filters are made of a plastic called cellulose acetate.
When tossed into the environment, they dump not only that plastic, but also the nicotine, heavy metals, and many other chemicals they’ve absorbed into the surrounding environment.
Source: National Geographic
Since May 2018, the EU has been trying to tackle the top 10 types of litter found on Europe’s beaches
EU ban on microplastics stubs out cigarette butt pollution
Thousands of smokers
Cigarette Butts
Thousands of smokers don’t think twice about leaving a trail of cigarette litter behind them.
According to Keep America Beautiful (KAB), Americans are smoking fewer cigarettes than ever before,
yet cigarette butts continue to be the most commonly littered item in the United States and around the world today.
Source: Verywell Mind
