Let’s Talk Trash! MAY / JUNE 2023 ©2022 -2023 The Keenan Group, Inc
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Since the 1980s, cigarette butts have consistently made up 30 to 40 percent of all items collected in annual international coastal and urban cleanups. That means cigarettes, which also top America’s list of most littered things, have the longstanding distinction of being the most littered item on earth, with about 4.5 trillion cigarettes discarded each year worldwide. Cigarette butts present a serious hazard to our natural world. The butt itself is comprised of two parts: A plastic fi lter and the remnants of the used tobacco. While the leftover tobacco is by de fi nition biodegradable, the fi lters are made from a plastic called cellulose acetate, a compound that eventually breaks down but never disappears. Ever. the roughly 4,000 chemicals found in cigarettes, and you've got the recipe for a pretty awful eco-aftertaste. What is the Most littered item around the world?
Be The Pollution Solution!
CIGARETTE
BUTTS
This doesn't stop our wildlife from sampling the local cuisine. Birds and dogs often pick at the bite-sized waste, and marine animals like fi sh can ingest cigarette butts that wash into nearby lakes, rivers, and oceans. If the poisons don't claim their lives fi rst, a predator or a commercial fi shery might, setting into motion a complexly destructive cycle in our food chain.
Source: https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/harmful-effects-tobacco/why-are-cigarette-butts-most-littered-item-earth
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