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Discarded cigarette butts (mainly the filter) are a form of non-biodegradable litter. Carried as runoff from streets to drains, to rivers, and ultimately to the ocean and its beaches, cigarette filters are the single most collected item each year in international beach cleanups. They are an environmental blight on streets, sidewalks, and other open areas. Rather than being a protective health device, cigarette filters are primarily a marketing tool to help sell ‘safe’ cigarettes. They are perceived by much of the public (especially current smokers) to reduce the health risks of smoking through technology. Filters have reduced the machine-measured yield of tar and nicotine from burning cigarettes, but there is controversy as to whether this has reduced the disease burden of smoking to the population. Filters actually may serve to sustain smoking by making it seem less urgent for smokers to quit and easier for children to initiate smoking because of reduced irritation from early experimentation.

Several options are available to reduce the environmental impact of cigarette filter waste, including:

* Developing biodegradable filters

* Increasing fines and penalties for littering butts

* Monetary deposits on filters

* Increasing availability of butt receptacles

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About 

This is a project funded by the California Tobacco Related Disease Research Project of the University of California as an IDEA grant. Its goal is to examine all the policy options available to eradicate cigarette butt waste from the environment and to advocate for adoption of such policies at the national, state, and local levels. Affiliates of the project also conduct scientific research on the toxicity of butts, the economics of butt cleanup, and the efforts of the tobacco industry to avoid responsibility for cigarette butt pollution. The Cigarette Butt Advisory Group (CBAG) advises the project, now based at San Diego State University's Graduate School of Public Health. CBAG consists of experts from public health, environmental sciences, tobacco control and environmental advocacy groups, communities, and legislative and policy think tanks. The Cigarette Butt Pollution Project seeks to unify public health efforts against smoking with environmental efforts against waste. Together, these efforts will add to health and healthy environments.

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Cigarette butts are the single most recovered items from beach and urban environmental cleanups, and the filters themselves do not biodegrade.

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VIDEO: Cigarette Butts Toxic to Marine Life 

a new study shows that cigarette butts can be just as dangerous for the environment. SDSU public health researcher Richard Gersberg evaluated the effects left-over cigarette butts have on marine life and found that the chemicals from just one filtered cigarette butt had the ability to kill fish living in a one-liter bucket of water. . . .

In response to these new findings, the national Cigarette Butt Advisory Group (CBAG) has made the recommendation that cigarette butts be placed on the list of hazardous waste.

"Each year, billions of cigarette butts end up on our beaches, and in our oceans, lakes and rivers," said Tom Novotny, chair of CBAG and professor of public health at SDSU. "Based on this new research, we believe that cigarettes should be considered toxic waste and new requirements need to be established for how they are disposed."

According to Novotny's recent article in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, an estimated 1.69 billion pounds (845,000 tons) of butts wind up as litter worldwide per year. In addition, the annual Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup reports that "cigarette butts have been the single most recovered item since collections began."

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Get your butts outa here! 

We've known forever that cigarette smoking is deadly. But so are the butts that smokers toss aside after their last puff, claim researchers from San Diego State University, the University of California-San Francisco and consulting groups Oxford Outcomes and the Varda Group.

That's why the team is leading an effort to have the butts considered toxic waste.

The researchers will present their findings today at the 137th annual meeting of the American Public Health Association, right here at the Philadelphia Marriott.

According to SDSU public health professor Rick Gersberg, cigarette butts allowed to soak in both fresh and salt water kill half the exposed fish in a standardized hazard assessment at a concentration of about one butt per liter. Further research is planned to identify the organic and inorganic chemicals in the cigarette butt that are lethal to fish and may be identified in natural environments.

The research is part of the Cigarette Butt Pollution Project funded by the California Tobacco Related Disease Research Program of the University of California.

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• Scientists take aim at cigarettes 

Cigarettes don’t just kill people, they also kill fish.

So said San Diego State University researchers who are trying to build a case for labeling cigarette butts as toxic hazardous waste. That tag would prompt more rules to reduce their presence in the environment, though the bigger effect may be in public perception.

The San Diego scientists will present their conclusions today at the 137th annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in Philadelphia. They have submitted their results for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

“It’s another way of looking at cigarettes as a societal hazard,” said Tom Novotny, a professor of public health at SDSU. “If we reframe the butts as toxic hazardous waste, that adds another opportunity to change the social acceptability of smoking.”

Robert Best, regional director of the smokers’ rights group Citizens Freedom Alliance in Ventura County, is skeptical.

“This is just another attack on smokers and an attack on the entire tobacco industry, including farmers and distributors, in the midst of an economic crisis,” Best said. “We already have littering laws in the state of California that say you cannot throw any trash out on the ground or in the waterways.” . . .

Novotny and his collaborators in the Cigarette Butt Pollution Project want more controls on what they call the most littered object on Earth. Trillions of cigarettes are smoked worldwide each year, and more than 1 million butts are collected annually during coastal cleanups in the United States, according to the project.

Novotny wondered about the butts’ effects on waterways. He turned to Rick Gersberg, a professor of public health at SDSU who specializes in water pollution.

Gersberg, a former smoker, was intrigued enough to review the scientific literature and determine that there were no published studies addressing cigarette butts and fish. . . .

Gersberg helped design an experiment in which he let smoked filters soak in containers of water for 24 hours. Then he put fish in the polluted water and monitored them for five days, part of what he called a standard hazard assessment.

Half the fish died in both salt and fresh water, Gersberg said.

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BAUERS: Toxic butts 

I always knew cigarette butts were nasty, but now it seems they're even worse than I thought. New research -- albeit funded by anti-cigarette groups -- suggests they could qualify as toxic hazardous waste.

The research comes from San Diego State University (SDSU); the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and consulting groups Oxford Outcomes and the Varda Group. It's part of the Cigarette Butt Pollution Project funded by the California Tobacco Related Disease Research Program of the University of California.

Their findings are being presented Monday at the 137th annual meeting of the American Public Health Association, held in Philadelphia.

Meanwhile, here's a preview of the findings and project activities, provided by San Diego State University:

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Falmouth to vote on beach smoking ban 

Local beach officials are tired of all the butts in the sand.

Voters at Monday's annual town meeting could make all of Falmouth's 11 town beaches smoke-free if they approve a recommendation from Beach Supt. Donald Hoffer and the Falmouth Beach Committee. If it passes, Falmouth will become the third Cape town, in addition to Barnstable and Yarmouth, to ban tobacco products from all public beaches, Hoffer said.

"Cigarette butts and filters end up in the sand, thousands of them every year, and they're not biodegradable," Hoffer said. "We'd be ridding the beaches of noxious debris."

The warrant article -- one of 32 voters will decide on Monday -- stemmed from a unanimous 5-0 vote from the beach committee and simply states "the use of smoking materials on the public beaches of Falmouth is prohibited."

Lifeguards will be responsible for enforcing the proposed rule, although Hoffer said he hopes beachgoers will eventually learn to police themselves so lifeguards can focus on keeping people safe from drowning.

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ACSID Looks to Give the Boot to Cigarette Litter on Atlantic Avenue  

In an effort to reduce the impact of unsightly litter gracing Atlantic Avenue, the Atlantic City Special Improvement District (ACSID), in conjunction with Keep America Beautiful, Inc. (KAB), has implemented the Cigarette Litter Prevention Program along a designated portion of Atlantic Avenue between North Carolina and Kentucky avenues.

The ACSID secured a $500 grant from KAB and provided an extra $765 towards the purchase of six (6) 4.5 gallon steel outdoor cigarette urns. Heavy duty, weather-resistant and fire-safe, these urns come complete with a three-sided message center that will allow for point-of-display advertising of the Cigarette Litter Prevention Program along Atlantic Avenue.

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No Smoking Outside the Bar, Either 

Although called the indoor clean air act, some local bar owners are catching flak due to people smoking outside their establishments. Apparently, the law's definition of indoors extends 25 feet from any entrance.

Robert Eddington, owner of Murphy's Bar and Grill at 160 S. Main, received a complaint from the Salt Lake Valley Health Department for "letting customers smoke within 25 feet of the door entrance." It was a pretty vexing charge for Eddington, who says the person smoking too close to the bar wasn't actually a patron, but a passer-by.

Despite attempts to modernize Salt Lake City's downtown nightlife, the staff of Murphy's feel they've been stuck with an unfair complaint. For manager Steve Evans, it doesn't help that the bar is so close to Temple Square.

"I think they give us a harder time just because we're so close to Mormon Disneyland ," he says.

Ironically, what attracted the complaint from the Health Department was not the smokers, but an attempt by the bar's staff to prevent cigarette butts from littering the sidewalk. "It seems the complaint was the ashtray, so I threw the ashtray in the dumpster," says Eddington. "Now that they have done their due diligence and saved the city from an ashtray, people can throw their cigarette butts on the sidewalk, in the planter boxes or in the gutter."

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Hold on To Your Butt! 

Cigarette butts are the most littered item in The United States and the world. This type of litter is not just found in streets and urban settings; the number of cigarette butts found on beaches can be overwhelming--typically accounting for nearly one in every five items collected during a beach cleanup. To make matters worse, butts are often cast onto the sidewalk and streets, and then end up in drains, which flow to streams, rivers, bays, lagoons and ultimately the ocean.

Hold Onto Your Butt Awareness Day will involve activists, volunteers, and friends of the environment gathering on San Diego's busiest traffic intersections as people arrive at the beach. There, Surfrider activists will hold signs, pass out personal ashtrays, stickers and graphically demonstrate to motorists the problem we're so concerned about. We will encourage motorists and beachgoers to dispose of cigarettes safely, and explain that cigarette butts thrown on the ground can eventually end up in the ocean and affect marine life, including surfers and swimmers. . . .

Our Chapter, along with American Lung Association, the American Heart Association and other organizations fighting cigarette litter, held a press conference with the Californian Highway Patrol (CHP) and San Diego Fire Department to announce that the CHP is cracking down on smokers who throw their butts out the car window while driving. The CHP joined our coalition efforts by setting up a hotline number that people can call if they see cigarette butts being tossed onto our streets and highways. After the phone call is received, the CHP will send a warning letter to the alleged violator. The hotline number, 1-877-211-BUTT, has already been successful! Our Chapter has been working on our Hold On To Your Butt campaign for years and we are delighted to be part of such a broad-based coalition. . . .

DID YOU KNOW? Cigarette butts are the most littered item in The United States and the world. . . .

* 18% of all litter dropped to the ground is washed into streams, rivers, lakes and the ocean by storm water runoff. Cigarette butts, are little and lightweight and are the first to get carried away into our waterways.0

* Studies indicate that since we have enacted indoor smoking bans, more cigarette butts are being tossed directly into the environment. Unfortunately, this means that ecosystems have a higher chance of being affected by cigarette butts. Biologists have found butts in the stomachs of young birds, sea turtles and other marine creatures.

* Cigarette butts can cause other environmental problems, such as fires. . . .

Ultimately, the Surfrider Foundation is calling for better enforcement of laws against cigarette butt littering; additional taxes on tobacco products specifically earmarked for clean-up efforts; more effort on the part of tobacco companies to improve the biodegradability of filters, reduce packaging waste and educate consumers about the impacts of tobacco waste on the environment; and more local involvement from governments and businesses to reduce cigarette littering by supplying ashtrays and other "disposal mechanisms" at building entrances.

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• Hold On To Your Butt Awareness Day is Saturday, November 14th  

In an effort to raise awareness of the cigarette butt litter problem and reduce the amount of cigarette butt litter in the region, the Surfrider Foundation San Diego County Chapter will be conducting Hold Onto Your Butt Awareness Day on Saturday, November 14 from 10 a.m. to noon at three locations in San Diego County.

Cigarette butts are the most littered item in The United States and the world. This type of litter is not just found on streets and in urban settings; the number of cigarette butts found on beaches and nearby areas is overwhelming--typically accounting for nearly one in every three items collected during a beach cleanup.

Cigarette waste discarded miles inland compounds the problem as it can end up in drains that flow to streams, rivers, bays, lagoons and ultimately the ocean. To make matters worse, lighted cigarette butts flicked into California's dry arid environment can spark deadly and costly wildfires.

Hold Onto Your Butt Awareness Day will involve activists, volunteers and friends of the environment gathering on San Diego's busiest traffic intersections as people arrive at the beach.

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Discarded cigarette butts add up to a huge problem for you, Earth  

Dear EarthTalk: Has anyone ever studied the environmental impact of discarded cigarettes? I'm constantly appalled at the number of drivers I see pitching their butts out their car windows.

- Ned Jordan, via e-mail

It's true that littered cigarette butts are a public nuisance, and not just for aesthetic reasons. The filters on cigarettes - four-fifths of all cigarettes have them -- are made of cellulose acetate, a form of plastic that is very slow to degrade in the environment. A typical cigarette butt can take anywhere from 18 months to 10 years to decompose, depending on environmental conditions.

But beyond the plastic, these filters, which are on cigarettes in the first place to absorb contaminants to prevent them from going into the lungs, contain trace amounts of toxins such as cadmium, arsenic and lead. Thus when smokers discard their butts improperly - out the car window or off the end of a pier or onto the sidewalk below - they are essentially tossing these substances into the environment.

Studies done by Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and even the tobacco industry itself show that these contaminants can get into soils and waterways, harm or kill living organisms and generally degrade surrounding ecosystems.

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THE PHANTOM: A new kind of smoking gun 

Menlo Park City Council Member Andrew Cohen obviously feels passionate about the city's plans to strengthen its existing smoking ordinance.

At a meeting Tuesday, the council discussed deeming smoking in certain areas a public nuisance. Cohen asked City Attorney William McClure whether such a designation would allow private citizens to request DNA testing in legal proceedings against smokers.

"If a citizen is entitled to pursue it as a nuisance, could they get cooperation from the police department to do DNA testing on cigarette butts?" Cohen asked. McClure was quick to dismiss that idea, saying police probably don't have the staffing for such an undertaking.

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Ridding City Of Butts  

While ordinances and state laws have kept public places free of smoke, it has increased the amount of cigarette litter on the street.

This month Keep Sidney Beautiful kicked off its Cigarette Litter Prevention Program to help fix that problem. The program is designed to help educate the public about properly disposing of cigarette butts. These strategically-placed ash trays serve as a reminder that partially-smoked cigarettes, matches and packaging all classify as litter.

Grant funding was used to purchase 11 ash receptacles to be placed in the downtown district.

Keep America Beautiful awarded Keep Sidney Beautiful $1,500 to purchase these receptacles.

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LETTER: Is a cigarette butt acceptable litter? 

Would an educated, considerate and articulate smoker please explain why flicking a cigarette butt out of a car window or otherwise tossing it on the road or sidewalk seems to be perceived by the cigarette-smoking population as an acceptable form of littering?

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