A recent study confirms that cigarette butt filters can kill aquatic animals by releasing thousands of toxins and plastic fibers. Cigarette butts are not only a visual pollution but they also represent a disaster for the environment.
In France, for example, between 20,000 and 25,000 tons of cigarette butts are discarded each year, each butt takes about ten years to degrade and risks ending up in the oceans. A Swedish study published in the journal Microplastics and Nanoplastics confirms that cigarette butt filters are particularly toxic for aquatic fauna because each filter contains about 15,000 microplastic fibers.
The University of Gothenburg states in a press release of May 3, 2023, that each year about 0.3 million tons of plastic fibers are released into the environment. The professor of ecotoxicology at the University of Gothenburg, Bethanie Carney Almroth says that the cigarette filter is not just any piece of plastic but is full of thousands of toxic chemicals and microplastic fibers that constitute hazardous waste when thrown into the environment.
The authors of the study tested the effects of the components of a filter from a smoked cigarette and those from an unlit cigarette on aquatic mosquito larvae. The scientists found that the toxins present in the filter, regardless of its condition, led to increased mortality in these insects. The same results were found in fish in a previous study, confirming the deadly impact of discarded cigarette butts.
Bethanie Carney Almroth explains that in Sweden, cleaning up costs municipalities millions of kronor, but the number of cigarette butts in the environment continues to rise. In France, the city of Paris has decided 2020 to punish with a fine of 135 € people who throw their butts on the ground and in 2022 the municipal police distributed more than 2,600 tickets.
But cigarette butts remain a scourge whether in the streets, on the beaches or in natural areas around the world. The authors of the study call for a ban on cigarette filters, which they consider a marketing ploy because they do not protect the smoker. Bethanie Carney Almroth says that filters should be removed from the market entirely, as the problem should be prevented in the first place rather than cleaned up later, she says.
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