Cigarette Butt Litter
The Most Common Litter & How to Stop it
Cigarette butts are littered everyday. According to Keep America Beautiful, people who liter are most likely to be seen before they walk into a building; step onto a bus; walk around a fair; drive a car; head to their office; go into a mall; wait on a train platform; stand by a dock; or walk by a construction site. Cigarette butts are 34.45% of the litter accounted for in 2003's Landscape Underwater U.S. Cleanups.
Not only are cigarettes being dropped by litterers, but so are lighters, matches, and cigarette packages. Buildings with no ash cans and garbage cans by the entrance find cigarettes thrown into the grass or on the sidewalk. Ashes are tapped out of windows instead of in car ashtrays. On cigarete packages, there is no warning about cigarette butt litter, and smokers may not realize their effect.
Because cigarettes are so lightweight, they can be carried into waterways, gardens, grass, and forests. When wildlife and dogs get ahold of cigarette litter, the nicotine inside is a health hazard. One half of a cigarette butt can kill 100% of animals, according to a test completed by Clean Virginia Waterways! It takes years for the cellulose acetate in cigarettes to biodegrade.
The Solution
Some of the best ways to stop cigarette litter is for smokers to stand next to a trash can. After smokers finish a cigarette, dump it into the ash receptacle or throw the cigarette in a garbage. Disposing of cigarettes near motor vehicles is dangerous because of gas leaks. Stay away from street curbs.
Smokers should also use their automobile ashtrays. Many car ashtrays are removable and can be dumped when getting gas or into a car litter bag. Stay away from sewers when getting rid of cigarette butts. Storm water carries litter into oceans, lakes, and ponds. Business owners, please post "No Smoking" signs in highly visible areas where trash cans are not present.
Write a letter to your Congress officials asking them to put "No Littering" signs on cigarette packages. You can even save on stamps by sending an e-mail for free. For more information on cigarette letter prevention, please visit Cigarette Butt Litter Prevention Tips. Even if you're not a smoker, inform those who do smoke of the environmental hazards. With your help, we can make Earth a much cleaner place.
Published by Shamontiel
Shamontiel is the author of Round Trip and Change for a Twenty, and in mid-October became the Chicago Tribune s Digital News Editor. She works on National Travel, Health and occasionally Breaking News, and w... View profile
- How To Read Car Safety RatingsYou hear it all the time..."5-Star Safety Rating'...."Superior Car Safery rating"...but, what exactly does it mean? And how does it impact your decision to buy a car?
- Used Car Buyer's GuideA simple guide that gives you some information to find out about the specific car you are considering, and some options to the traditional way that used cars are purchased.
- Tinted Car WindowsMany automobile owners tint their car windows. There are many practical reasons.
Winterizing Your CarPrecautionary steps winterizing a car or automobile. Prevent costly problems & aggravation driving in cold climates. Essential items should be kept in the trunk for emergencies.- Four New Car Dealerships on West Genesee Street in Syracuse, NYIf residents are looking for a new vehicle, they have a wide variety of options. The following car dealerships are all conveniently located close to each other on West Genesee Street.
- Confronting Smokers on Cigarette Butt Litter: "Rebuttals"
- The Littering Behavior of Smokers
- Insurance Companies Treat Smokers Unfairly
- How Do You Dispose of Your Cigarette Butts?
- How to Advoid Car Breakdowns
- Four Quality New Car Dealerships in Ithaca, New York
- Car Dealerships in Lake Charles, Louisiana
- Cigarette butts are littered everyday.
- Lighters, matches, and cigarette packages are also littered.
- On cigarete packages, there is no warning about cigarette butt litter.
10 Comments
Post a CommentAsad Lucky, I hope you were kidding. Last year in February, a Florida guy was smoking an electronic cigarette and it blew up in his face due to a faulty battery. It took out some of his front teeth and burned his face up. The Feds also found cancer-causing chemicals in it. I get that it can't create secondhand smoke and is "safer" to use, but I'm willing to bet the same people flicking cigarettes would throw batteries on the ground, too.
just quit smoking and try electronic cigarette
Anti-Cigarette Litter Solution for city sponsorship
I have been closely monitoring the affect cigarette litter is having on communities nationwide.
The UK and Australia are pretty much leading the way in dealing with this problem
Cigarette Litter - An unseen environmental danger.
I would like to draw attention to a problem which is largely forgotten.
Visit http://www.buttless.org for more information on how to sponsor a local or regional campaign today. Buttless products are the number 1 choice for governments and Businesses around the world.
Government and environmental agencies worldwide are spending millions of tax dollars tackling a problem that until recently has been largely unnoticed.
Cigarette litter has impacted on our environment to such an extent that it has become a focal point for top level governmental discussions worldwide.
Visual aids used to educate smokers about the harmful effects of their carelessness are easy enough, but proving to be ineffectiv
Hi..
We have designed and Patented a brand new approach to cigarette and chewing gum litter control. We have just won a pan European Red Dot product Design Award 2008 and our Smartstreets-Smartbin has now been adopted by over 35 Councils across Europe.
If you are interested to see what we are doing and find out why our approach is working extremely well in cities across Europe please visit www.smartstreets.eu and www.smartstreets.co.uk
Our litter bins are made from recycled aluminium and stainless steel and reduce clutter by wrapping around existing street furniture such as lamp-posts and sign-posts (as well as fixing onto walls and railings) - making it a sustainable solution to a very messy, damaging litter problem.
We hope to be appearing in a city near you soon .. and that cigarette and gum litter will be reduced as a result to everyone's benefit.
Thank you for your interest - from all at Smartstreets Ltd, London, UK +44 (0)20 8742 3223 sales@smartstreets.co.uk
RCPA, I'm sorry to have gotten back to you so late, but AC didn't used to send alerts to outside non-AC users. Anyway, I visited the site. So you put the cigarettes in this little case? This sounds great, but my only concern is people don't want to clean out their ashtrays, so would they really clean this out? Also, chain smokers may fill this little oval up in no time, no?
JR, thank you for the link. As a nonsmoker, I don't understand why someone would waste a cigarette. Boxes of those things are $5 to $7. If I was a smoker, there's no way in the world that I'd quit after smoking half. I had a roommate whose mom was a chain smoker, and she NEVER finished a cigarette. That was so odd to me.
I know a product that can help. www.stowitaway.com Get a Stow Away
Not Quite the Stig, if the smoker smashes the cigarette out so the fire is extinguished, then it is not a fire hazard. I'll tell you what's a fire hazard. I see smokers on a daily basis drop lit cigarettes next to cars that are driving down the street. All it takes is ONE car to be leaking gas, and that's a fire right there. At my current job, I've seen some of the laziest smokers (maybe because of smokers' lungs) not even walk to the ashtrays next to the buildings. They just drop it wherever they're standing and go back in the building. Businessowners can ban smoking from a certain amount of feet outside a building. I'm glad restaurants and so many bars are banning it too. Take care of your lungs!
Advising people to put recently extinguished cigarettes into trash cans is a fire hazard waiting to happen, because the cigarette is still hot. Building owners need to provide effective and visible ashtray locations so cigarettes do not end up on the street. I will tell you of a disgusting place I had to walk past regularly that had no outdoor ashtray offerings. Once a smoking ban came into place, smokers got shoved outside and the street regularly had 200-500 cigarette butts sitting around, partially because the club did not clean up the sidewalk. This is because no public ashtrays were made available. Likewise, business owners cannot ban smoking right outside the building as that is public property. The -solution- is ashtrays.
Just quit and you can eliminate the two with one stone.
=l