Cigarettes: Harmful to the Environment, Not Just to Your Health

Cigarettes are universally known to be a health hazard, but the nasty habit of lighting up is harmful to more than just your body. Large-scale littering of cigarette filters, used butts, packaging and matches is also detrimental to the environment, and researchers behind a review article in the journal Current Environmental Health Reports are rallying to establish policy measures to lessen the impact of smoking-related litter.

Thomas Novotny of the San Diego State University and Elli Slaughter suggest banning cigarette filters, starting a deposit-return system for used butts, holding manufacturers responsible for clean-ups, and placing warnings on packets about the effect of littering used cigarettes.

An estimated 4.5 trillion of the annual 6 trillion cigarettes sold worldwide are not disposed of properly, but are conveniently flicked anywhere. Cigarette butts and other tobacco waste products are the number one items picked up at beaches worldwide, for instance.

"Tobacco waste products are ubiquitous, environmentally hazardous and a significant community nuisance," Novotny advocated in a statement. "With two-thirds of all smoked cigarettes, numbering in the trillions globally, being discarded into the environment each year, it is critical to consider the potential toxicity and remediation of these waste products."

Researchers suggest that the recent ban on indoor smoking may be part of the problem.

This type of litter is literally toxic to the environment. Chemicals in cigarettes such as arsenic, nicotine, lead and ethyl phenol could seep into salt and fresh water and be extremely dangerous to aquatic micro-organisms and fish.

Even their packaging poses risks. Plastic cigarette filters are practically non-biodegradable and can leak chemicals as much as 10 years after they're discarded. An estimated 49.8 million kilograms of filters are thrown away in the United States alone each year.

With current anti-littering laws not making one bit of difference in people's lazy habits, Novotny and Slaughter are fighting to instill more effective laws, including making industries pay an advanced recycling fee or taking back all discarded tobacco waste products.