Report: Cigarette butts most littered object in the world
Don’t be a butt – dispose of your trash properly
In honor of Earth Day Monday, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health shared an update on the most littered object in the world – and the answer was surprising.
It’s cigarette butts – and the volume is what really caught us off-guard.
The agency notes that 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are improperly disposed of annually around the world.
In this day and age, when we know the dangers of smoking – and we’ve seen countless public health campaigns against it – the volume of butts being littered caught us off guard.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that in the U.S., current smoking declined from 20.9% of adults in 2005 to 11.5% in 2021 – which is a significant decrease. Yet still, despite that, cigarette butts still lead the pack when it comes to litter menaces.
“They’re not just unsightly; they pose a significant environmental threat,” Johns Hopkins notes.
The agency points out that cigarette butts contain thousands of toxic substances, including metals and hydrogen compounds, noting a single cigarette butt can potentially contaminate up to 1,000 liters of water. Complicating the issue is the fact that cigarette filters are made of plastic that does not biodegrade.
And here’s the kicker. Hopkins, “Research has shown that filters don’t make smoking any less harmful.”according to Johns
The agency notes that filters give smokers a “false sense of a safer product” while helping the tobacco industry sell more cigarettes. And the filters pollute the environment.
Earthday.org reports that a cigarette filter can take up to 10 years to completely degrade, but the chemicals they release stay in the environment for years beyond the life of the butt itself. Those chemicals include arsenic, lead and nicotine.
Throw a butt out the window or drop it down a drain, and those butts then slowly leach toxins into water and soil systems, Earthday.org notes.
Johns Hopkins notes that there are policies that could help, such as banning cigarette filters.
However, we would think the most effective way to help fight this problem would be to start with smokers themselves.
It’s very simple – if you smoke cigarettes, don’t be a butt. Throw your cigarette butts in the trash – not on the ground, and do your part to help protect our planet.