Smokin Station
Dirty Smoking Statistics
global impact of smokers litter
Cigarette butt litter is the world’s greatest environmental litter problem
- Globally, approximately 4.3 trillion cigarette butts are littered every year.
- This accounts for around 40% of all litter
- Almost 1 in 3 cigarette butts end up as litter and impact both our aqueous and terrestrial environments.
- Cigarette butt litter thrown from a car window can start a roadside fire or even bushfire.
- Cigarette butt litter dramatically increases where indoor smoking bans are implemented.
- Cigarette butt litter is carried by stormwater and dumped into our waterways, reducing our water quality and potentially harming our marine life.
- Cigarette butts can leach chemicals such as cadmium, lead and arsenic into our marine environment within an hour of contact with water.
- Cigarette butts have being found in the stomachs of fish, whales, birds and other marine animals which leads to ingestion of hazardous chemicals, digestive blockages and even death.
- Young children are known to pick up and digest cigarette butt litter. Reports have described severe toxicity among children who ingested cigarettes or cigarette butts including depressed respiration, cardiac arrhythmia, and convulsions.
- Cigarette butt litter costs councils huge sums of money to clean up and is a significant cost to the community’s resources.
- Litter, including cigarette butt litter, can block drainage systems which may cause flooding, costing councils millions of dollars to repair.
- Now if that does not urge you to want to assist the environment from disposing of your cigarette butt litter correctly, countries are now imposing instant fines against this litter. So the next time you incorrectly dispose of your cigarette butt litter it could cost you money.
