Cigarette Butts - The lesser known Murderer

When we talk about smoking, we usually forget that what remains after smoking a cigarette is its smoke and cigarette butts. Cigarette Butts are used to filter the smoke and mostly considered as biodegradable. But the truth is that they contain some minor amounts of plastic, so it takes at least 18 months to breakdown. Even after such a long duration plastic particles remain in soil. Cigarette butts are toxic which can leach into soil and pollute the water as well. After reading this article your view about cigarette butts will definitely change and you will yourself call them murderers.

Facts about Cigarette Butts

• 4.5 trillion filtered cigarettes are smoked everyday around the world, which means equal number of cigarette butts.
• This amount of cigarette butts create 500,000 tons of pollution every year.
• Cigarette butts are the number one item littering U.S. roads.
• In 2005, 28% of visible litter in Texas was made up of cigarettes.
• Cigarette Butts are toxic and have a huge impact on marine life. 30% of total litter along US shorelines are cigarette butts.
• Breakdown of cigarette butts in fresh water takes 15 months, while in sea water it takes around 5 years.
• Within one hour of contact with water, cigarette buds start leaching harmful toxic chemicals.
• Cigarette buds are found in stomachs of fishes, birds, whales and other marine animals. It not just causes digestive problems, but sometimes death as well. 

Cigarette Butts and carelessness costs a lot

90,000 fire incidents are caused by careless throwing of cigarette butts. It results in 900 deaths and 2500 injuries every year. Out of the death toll, approximately 100 are children and nonsmokers. Such fires cost around $6 billion of property.

Still if a person thinks that he is only harming himself through smoking, not anybody else, then he is fooling himself and dragging the whole humanity into the litter of cigarette buds.