Most people think of cigarette butts as just an everyday nuisance, but the effects of cigarette litter are dangerous and far reaching.
Cigarette smoke contains over 4000 chemicals. More than 1652 are toxic & at least 60 of those are known carcinogens. A study by the National Cancer Institute in Italy showed that environmental tobacco smoke (second hand smoke) emits particulate matter concentrations up to ten times that of a diesel engine.3 This, obviously, isn’t good for Florida’s air quality. Cigarette filters are designed to trap these chemicals and reduce the amount ingested by the smoker, but when not properly disposed of, the butts take years to decompose and often end up in the water supply through storm drains and runoff releasing the carcinogens they contain into the ground & water during the process.
Cigarette butts can leach chemicals within an hour of contact with water.1 That means they can release cadmium, lead, arsenic and other toxic substances into Florida’s marine environment very quickly. In addition, cigarette butts have been found in the stomachs of dead fish & birds because they mistook them for food.4
Cigarettes are the leading cause of fatal fires in the US.5 Nationwide, upwards of 90,000 fires each year are cigarette related. 6 At some point in their lives most people have seen a smoker fall asleep holding a cigarette. This can be very dangerous and have catastrophic consequences. Every year about 1000 people die in smoking-related house fires across our nation. Twenty-five percent of these casualties are not even the smoker that started the fire. In fact, about a third are children and a quarter are neighbors or friends. 7 Occasionally emergency personnel also lose their lives during rescue efforts. Even though no price can be put on the life of a loved one or pet, the annual cost of fires caused by careless smoking in the U.S. is in the billions. 8
If enough voices unite, they will be heard in Tallahassee!
