Cigarette Butt Litter Statistics

• An estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are littered worldwide every year (Cigarette Litter Organisation 2001)
• Australians smoked nearly 24 billion cigarettes in 2001 (Price Waterhouse Industry Exchange)
• Cigarette butts have consistently made the top ten of items picked up in the Clean Up Australia Day rubbish report since it started in 1990
• Cigarette butt litter comprised 58% of all items littered in public places around Australia (Community Change 2001 Measuring environmentally desirable behaviour BIEC published Littering Behaviour Study III)
• Cigarette butt litter includes the butts, cellophane wrapping, foil inserts and packaging but could also include matches, match boxes, plastic lighters and associated paraphernalia
• 95% of the litter on beaches comes from suburban streets through the stormwater system (Melbourne Water)
• Cigarette butts make up about one third of the more than one billion items of litter finding its way into Melbourne's waterways each year (Melbourne Water)
• One in ten cigarette butts ends up in the bay or our waterways (Melbourne Water)
• Local government spent over $41 million on litter in 2000/01, with 74% spent on street sweeping and the remainder on street litter bins and litter traps (EcoRecycle Victoria Municipal data survey 2000/01)
• Butts have been found in the stomachs of young birds, sea turtles and other marine creatures (EcoRecycle 1998)
• Over 8,500 litter fines were issued in 2001/02 by the EPA through its litter report line, up 1000 from the year before. Over 90% of these fines were for cigarette butt littering. The majority of these fines were made by ordinary people
  

Filters: how long do they take to break down

• Estimates on the biodegradability of cigarette butts are hugely varied. Some organisations state they take up to 15 years to break down, while research by the filter manufactures themselves find that cigarette butts take the following length of time to biodegrade:
  • 1-2 months in aerobic (with air) conditions
  • 6-9 months in anaerobic (without air) conditions
  • 12 months in fresh water
  • 36 months or longer in sea-water (Clean Up Australia 1997; NSW EPA 2001)
• Approximately 80% of the filter of smoked cellulose acetate filters placed on soil degraded within 12 months (Co-operative Centre for Scientific Research Relative to Tobacco [a non-profit organisation ruled by French law] August 2000)
• Cellulose acetate filters degraded in water within 12 months (Japan Tobacco Inc, Tobacco Science Research Laboratory 1996)
  

Toxicity

• Cigarette butts may seem small, but with an estimated 4.5 trillion butts (worldwide) littered every year, the toxic chemicals add up! (Cigarette Litter Organisation 2001)
• Each butt contains the remnants of tobacco and paper plus the filter. The residue in the butts contains some very toxic and soluble chemicals. These chemicals add to the existing 'cocktail' of environmental pollution (Clean Up Australia 1997)
• Chemicals can leach from cigarette butts within one hour of contact with water. The chemicals that leach from cigarette butts are toxic to small crustaceans (cladocerans) and a bacteria at concentrations as low as one cigarette butt per 40 litres (Register 2000; Warne et al. 2002) Toxicity persists for at least seven days (Warne et al. 2002). Studies have shown that for some species toxic effect may occur at concentrations up to 100 times lower than cladocerans. Thus, toxic effects could occur at concentrations of one cigarette butt per 4000 litres (Warne et al. 2002).
• The act of smoking dramatically increases the toxicity of leachates from filters, tobacco and cigarette butts (tobacco and filters) to both a small crustacean and bacteria (Warne et al., 2002).
  

Fires

• Flicked butts can cause fires. The 1995 NSW Fire Brigade Annual Report found that cigarettes and matches directly caused over half of all fires in the built environment. As many as 1,200 grass and bushfires each year are attributed to cigarettes.