Butt Out: The Environmental Impact of Cigarette Waste
By Joseph Young
Joseph is a graduate student in Ontario Tech’s new Master of Arts in Social Practice and Innovation (MSPI) program conducting research which measures the degree of political uniformity in Durham Region’s environmental movement.
Every year, roughly 48,000 Canadians die as a result of complications related to tobacco use. Accounting for 47% of all health care costs stemming from substance use in Canada, and with an estimated economic impact of $12.3 billion domestically in 2017, Health Canada has developed a national Tobacco Strategy and tightened regulations on the appearance and packaging of tobacco products in an effort to reduce tobacco consumption. This follows similar trends in global policymaking, such as Australia’s tobacco tax or the UK’s recent decision to progressively limit cigarette sales based on age.
The use of tobacco products not only poses risks to those who choose to consume them. Second-hand smoke exposure has been linked to an increased risk of lung cancer, heart disease and stroke, leading to the enactment of provincial laws banning the use of tobacco products in enclosed public places. Nonetheless, second-hand smoke is not the only problematic externality related to tobacco consumption. The tobacco lifecycle has numerous environmental impacts, from soil degradation induced by growing tobacco to those stemming from the manufacturing and transporting of tobacco products around the world. Importantly, the environmental impacts of disposing tobacco products are particularly alarming, with an estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette butts being improperly discarded annually around the globe.
There are a number of reasons why cigarette butt litter is problematic. Cigarette butts decompose slowly, losing only 37.8% of their initial mass after two years. They are highly toxic, causing disruptions to ecosystems they are discarded within and posing a significant risk to microbes, insects, fish and mammals. They also represent a threat to urban water quality due to nicotine elution, meeting the EU threshold for being designated ‘hazardous waste’. These observations have led researchers to develop new indexes to measure cigarette butt pollution in urban environments.
What can be done to mitigate the detrimental environmental impacts of this waste? Novotny et al have laid out a series of policy recommendations, such as the development of biodegradable filters, increased fines and penalties for those who dispose of cigarette butts improperly, monetary deposits on filters, increased availability of cigarette butt receptacles, and an expansion of public education. The authors also make an important causal link to public health concerns, noting that cellulose-acetate filters were added to cigarettes in the 1950s in an effort to reduce incidences of lung cancer and other diseases related to smoking. Thus, an attempt to solve one problem related to tobacco use inadvertently created another - the remnants of which are now discarded in public places throughout the world. While higher-level policy change can take many years to come to fruition, there is a growing push for communities to take the issue of tobacco pollution into their own hands. On May 7th, Ontario Tech partnered with A Greener Future to carry out a Butt Blitz - an event where eleven volunteers picked up approximately 9,000 cigarette butts on campus. This is despite the fact that Ontario Tech is a smoke-free campus.
Before clean-up
After clean-up
Community cleanups are an important intervention in the battle for environmental justice. They not only help to rid ecosystems of toxic pollutants but also spread awareness about the risks associated with tobacco waste. Events such as A Greener Future’s Butt Blitz and Love Your Lakes or Ontario Tech’s campus cleanups are great volunteer opportunities which empower citizens to take matters into their own hands. Yet, higher-level policy change will ultimately be needed to effectively reduce pollution caused by tobacco products in the long term. For an overview of where things currently stand, please see this report by Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada.
While it is still possible for people to legally purchase and use tobacco products in Canada, it is important for consumers to be cognizant of the impacts these products can have on the environment and other people. If you do smoke, please dispose of your waste responsibly. Although it may be a momentary inconvenience to carry your cigarette butt to a receptacle, consider how long it will take that cigarette butt to decompose when discarded improperly, how toxic it is, and the impact it will have on the ecosystem it is discarded within. Only by being mindful and working together can we bring about a greener and more sustainable future for all Canadians.
References
A Greener Future. (n.d.). The Butt Blitz: On a mission to keep cigarette butts out of the environment. https://www.agreenerfuture.ca/the-butt-blitz
A Greener Future. (n.d.) Love Your Lakes: Help Us Protect the Lakes We Love. https://www.agreenerfuture.ca/love-your-lakes
Bonanomi, G., Incerti, G., Cesarano, G., Gaglione, S. A., & Lanzarotti, V. (2015). Cigarette Butt Decomposition and Associated Chemical Changes Assessed by 13C CPMAS NMR. PLoS ONE, 10(1).
Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022). Environmental Impacts of the Tobacco Lifecycle. https://archive.cdc.gov/#/details?url=https://www.cdc.gov/globalhealth/infographics/tobacco/tobacco-lifecycle.html
Green, A. L. R., Putschew, A., & Nehls, T. (2014). Littered cigarette butts as a source of nicotine in urban waters. Journal of Hydrology, 519(D), 3466-3474.
Health Canada. (2023). Canada’s Tobacco Strategy. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/publications/healthy-living/canada-tobacco-strategy.html
Health Canada. (2023). Second-Hand Smoke. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-concerns/tobacco/legislation/tobacco-product-labelling/second-hand-smoke.html
Health Canada. (2023). Tobacco Products Appearance, Packing and Labeling Regulations. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/news/2023/05/tobacco-products-appearance-packaging-and-labelling-regulations.html
Nicholas, J., & Kelly, C. (2023). Australia’s tobacco tax is among the highest in the world - and it’s about to get higher. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2023/may/04/australia-tobacco-tax-is-among-the-highest-in-the-world-and-is-about-to-get-higher
Novotny, T. E., Lum, K., Smith, E., Wang, V., & Barnes, R. (2009). Cigarette Butts and the Case for an Environmental Policy on Hazardous Cigarette Waste. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 6(5), 1691-1705.
Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada. (2022). Plastic waste from tobacco and vaping products. https://smoke-free.ca/SUAP/2020/Single-Use-Plastics-and-Tobacco-Waste.pdf
Smoke-Free Ontario Act, S. O. 2016, c 26, Sched. 3 https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/17s26
Torkashvand, J., Godini, K., Jafari, A. J., Esrafili, A., & Farzadkia, M. (2021). Assessment of littered cigarette butt in urban environment, using of new cigarette butt pollution index (CBPI). Science of the Total Environment, 769.
