Flicking cigarette butts onto the street is often still tolerated, even though a single butt – with its mix of toxins like arsenic and lead – can contaminate up to 1,000 liters of water. For any other type of waste with this concentration of pollutants, such disposal would be unthinkable.
The numbers speak for themselves
Trillions of cigarettes are smoked worldwide every year, and a large portion of the butts end up in the environment uncontrolled. In Germany, approximately 65 to 70 billion cigarettes are taxed annually. Estimates suggest that up to two-thirds of these – meaning billions of butts – end up in the environment rather than in an ashtray.
What’s really in a cigarette butt?
Cigarette filters collect up to 7,000 different substances while smoking – including arsenic, lead, cadmium, and the neurotoxin nicotine. When a used cigarette butt comes into contact with water, these substances are immediately released. After just 30 minutes in a puddle, about half of the nicotine has leached out of the cigarette butt and enters the water cycle unfiltered.
Danger to waterways and wildlife
Just one-eighth of a cigarette butt is enough to kill all the water fleas in a liter of water. The toxins in a single cigarette butt can kill half of all the fish in a liter of water within 96 hours. Furthermore, the filter does not biodegrade but breaks down into microplastics over decades.
The problem also affects our oceans:
Over 50% of the trash on many Baltic Sea beaches consists of cigarette butts. On the North Sea coast, too, they are regularly among the ten most commonly found items of litter.
Not paper - but plastic
Cigarette filters are not made of paper, but of the plastic cellulose acetate. In nature, this plastic does not decompose, but breaks down into tiny particles over decades. In the salt water of the oceans, this process can even take several hundred years. In Germany alone, an estimated 40 tons of microplastics enter our soil and waterways every year from cigarette filters alone.
What can we do?
Cigarette butts always belong in the general waste or in public ashtrays – never in the gutter or on the ground.
By disposing of your filters properly, you actively protect groundwater and save the public millions in cleanup costs.
In addition, this simple gesture protects countless living creatures from dangerous toxins in their habitat. Even a single carelessly discarded filter is enough to permanently contaminate hundreds of liters of water.
Contact us for comprehensive advice on your compliance issues relating to electrical and electronic equipment, packaging, batteries, and PV panels.
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