While one cigarette butt might not seem like a huge problem, they have a huge environmental impact as the most littered item on the planet.

4.5 Trillion cigarette butts are littered every year [1] In Canada, more than 8,000 tonnes of cigarette waste is littered every year - this is roughly equivalent to the weight of 53 blue whales or 8,000 small cars [2]

They may not appear as typical plastic pollution, but cigarette butt filters are actually made of cellulose acetate - a non-biodegradable plastic fibre.
Each butt contains ~12,000 cellulose acetate microfibres [3]  Filters can take anywhere from 18 months - 10 years to breakdown [3]

Microfibres shed when they end up in the water and contribute to microplastic pollution in the Great Lakes.

Cigarette filters prevent many toxins from entering the body of a smoker; however, when this filter is discarded into the environment, butts pose a serious threat to ecosystems and the organisms living within them.  About 130 chemicals exist in each cigarette butt [3]

One cigarette butt soaked in a litre of water for 4 days is lethal enough to kill 50% of test fish exposed to cigarette butts leachates [3] 

Since 2015, A Greener Future volunteers - including those Waste Watchers volunteers in Owen Sound - have removed 2.7 million butts from Canadian communities, diverted 897 poinds of plastic waste from the environment (cigarette butts are light!) and saved 2 MIllion litres of water from contamination.

The ambitious goal for April 2022 is ONE MILLION butts.  If you'd like to help, email [email protected]  or come and visit us  (and many other exhibitors, musicians, artists and paraders at the Earth Day Celebrations at the Owen Sound Farmers' Market on  Saturday, April 23  from 1:30 to 5.

 [1] https://res.mdpi.com/d_attachment/proceedings/proceedings-02- 01447/article_deploy/proceedings-02-01447.pdf
[2] https://zerowastecanada.ca/tag/cigarette-butts/
[3] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/cigarettes-story-of-plastic