Environmental Impact of Cigarette butts

1. Environmental Impact of Cigarette butts Martha E. Dominguez, Ph.D. student Walden University PUBH 8165: Environmental Health, Section 1 Instructor: Dr. Robert Marino Fall, 2011

2. Agenda • Topic: Environmental Impact of Cigarette butts • Purpose of presentation: • Goals • Learning Outcomes • Overview of the issue: • Magnitude of cigarette butts • Problem • The impact of the problem: • Metal • Toxicity • Other Environmental impacts • Who’s Butts? • Solutions • Research • Questions?

3. Goals of the Presentation • To educate about the harmful effects of tobacco waste on the environment. • Learn more about pioneer new research on the toxicity of cigarette butts in the environment. • Engage you and build support to protect the environment. • Develop linkage between environmental and tobacco control groups to reduce tobacco waste.

4. Learning Outcomes • Recognize that cigarette are toxic waste. • Recognize that cigarette butts are a threat to our eco-system. • Explain that cigarette butts release toxic and metal into the environment. • Explain that cigarette butts are the # 1 item picked up during beach and roadway clean-ups. • Explain that cigarette filters are not biodegradable.

5. Magnitude • Yearly, more than 360 billion cigarettes are consumed in the Unites States (USDA, 2007). • Translates to 135,000,000 pounds of discarded butts (Register, 2000). • Cigarette consumption leads to cigarette butt waste.

6. Cigarette Butt Problem • Cigarette butts are the #1 waste item collected from beaches, roads, and streets (CDT, 2011 & OC, 2011). • Annual beach clean-up campaigns. • 34% in California (Lipper et al., 2001) • $41 million spend on waste clean-up (CDT, 2011) • Contribute to storm drain trash (Novotny et al., 2009). • Cigarette butts do not biodegrade (Smith & Novotny, 2011). • Made of cellulose acetate, a plastic material. • Cigarette butts leach out toxic chemicals (Smith & Novotny, 2011). • Over 4000 chemicals may be introduced to the environment via cigarette particulate matter (i.e., tar or nicotine) and mainstream smoke (Slaughter et al., 2011). • Cigarette butts contain all the carcinogenic chemicals, pesticides, and nicotine that make tobacco (Smith & Novotny, 2011).

7. Metals leached from cigarette butts • Metals may rapidly released into the environment (Moerman & Potts, 2011). • Heavy metals from cigarettes butts leach into the environment (Moriwaki et al, 2009 & Moerman & Potts, 2011): • Lead • Copper • Chromium • Cadmimum • Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons • Metal contamination can have acute harm to local organisms (Moerman & Potts, 2011). • Toxic soup is created when butts are soaked in water (Moerman & Potts, 2011).

8. Toxicity • Cigarette butts are toxic. • Studies have shown that smoked cigarette butts, unsmoked cigarette tobacco, and smoked cigarette tobacco are toxic due to the chemicals found in butts’ remnant tobacco (Register, 2000, Micevska et al., 2006, & Slaughter et al., 2011). • Cigarette butts are a potential ecological risk to the aquatic environment (Slaughter et al., 2011) • Study show that one cigarette butt will kill half the fish exposed to leachates in a controlled laboratory setting (Slaughter et al., 2011).

9. Toxicity • Cigarette butts are poisonous if ingested by children or wildlife (Novotny et al, 2011). • Just one cigarette butt could be lethal and toxic. • Ten milligrams (mg) of nicotine is the lethal. • In young children, 1 to 2 mg is toxic. • In pets, 9.2 mg is toxic. • Cigarettes contain from 9 to 30 mg of nicotine, and butts (filter) contain 0.1 to 1.5 mg

10. Other Environmental Impacts • Unattended and discarded cigarettes cause fires (NFPA, 2011). • Their non-biodegradability increases waste management demands (Novotny et al., 2009).

11. Who’s Butts? • The tobacco industry has recognized the problem. • Keep America Beautiful campaign • Position on problem: • Has put the blame on the individual • To persuade individuals to take responsibility, the tobacco industry studied smokers’ attitudes • Results: • Dislike seeing butts on the ground. • Individuals tossed butts on the ground as part of the smoker ritual.

12. Butt Really!!! • Join forces and find solutions to eliminate cigarette butts! • Tobacco control and environmental activist need to work together to hold the tobacco industry accountable for the toxic mess they’ve caused! • Cigarette butts are the last socially acceptable form of waste. • Cigarette butt waste is costly.

13. Solutions! • Education and awareness promoting behavior change. • Quit smoking • Enforcing litter laws and fines. • Support research on the impact of cigarette butts on the environment.

14. Further Reading Sources • Articles: • Novotny, T.E, Lum, K., Smith, E., Wang, V., Barnes, R. (2009). Filtered Cigarettes on cigarette waste. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.6, 1691-1705; doi:10.3390/ijerph6051691 • Sawdey, M., Lindsay, R.P., Novotny, T.E. (2011). Smoke-free college campus: no ifs, ands or toxic butts. Tobacco Control. 20(Suppl 1):i21-i24. DOI:10.1136/tc.2010.04o139 • Micevska T, Warne MS, Pablo F, Patra R. Variation in, and causes of, toxicity of cigarette butts to a cladoceran and microtox. Arch Environ ContamToxicol. Feb 2006;50(2):205-212. • Moerman, J.W. & Potts, G.E. (2011). Analysis of metals leached from smoked cigarette litter. Tobacco Control. 20: (Suppl 1): i30-i35. • Moriwaki, H., Kitajima, S., Katahira, K., Waste on the roadside, ‘poi-sure’ waste: Its distribution and elution pontential of pollutants into environment. Waste Management. August 2008 (29): 1192-1197. • Register, KM. Cigarette Butts as Litter—Toxic as Well as Ugly Underwater Naturalist, Bulletin of the American Littoral Society, 2000. Retrieved from: http://www.longwood.edu/cleanva/ciglitterarticle.htm • Slaughter, E., Gersberg, R.M., Watanabe, K., Rudolph, J., Stransky, C., and Novtny, T.E. (2011). Toxicity of Cigarette butts, and their chemical components, to marine and freshwater fish. Tobacco Control. 20 (Suppl 1):i25-i29. DOI:10.1136/tc.2010.040170. Retrived from http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/20/Suppl_1/i25.full.pdf • Websites: • California Coastal Commission- clean-up campaigns • http://www.coastal.ca.gov/publiced/ccd/ccd.html • Surfrider Foundation – Hold on to your Butts • http://sandiego.surfrider.org/campaigns/hold-on-to-your-butt • The Cigarette Butt Advisory Group and Cigarette Butt Pollution Project: http://www.cigwaste.org/ • Research Studies: http://www.cigwaste.org/index.php/Research/ • Earth Resource: http://www.earthresource.org/

15. Questions? Contact Information: martha.dominguez@waldenu.edu

16. References: • California Department of Transportation [CDT]. (2011). Don’t trash California: frequently asked questions fact sheet. Retrieved from http://www.donttrashcalifornia.info/pdf/Frequently_Asked_Questions.pdf • Lipper, G., Johnson, J., Combs, S., Walter, K., Marx, D. (2001). Results of the Caltrans Litter Management Pilot. Transportation Research Record 1743. Retrieved from http://www.owp.csus.edu/research/papers/papers/PP020.pdf • Micevska, T., Warne, M.J., Pablo, F., Patra, R. (2006). Variation in, and causes of, toxicity of cigarette butts to a cladoceran and microtox. Archieved os Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. 50, 205-212. DOI: 10.1007/s00244-004-0132-y. • Moerman, J.W. and Potts, G.E. (2011). Analysis of metals leached from smoked cigarette litter. Tobacco Control. 20(Suppl 1):i30-i35. DOI:10.1136/tc.2010.040196 • Moriwaki, H., Kitajima, S., Katahira, K. (2008). Waste on the roadside, ‘poi-sure’waste: its distribution and elution potential of pollutants into environment. Waste Management. 1192-1197. • National Fire Protection Agency [NFPA]. (2011). Smoking. Retrieved from http://www.nfpa.org/itemdetail.asp?categoryid=294&itemid=19303&url=research%20&%20reports/fact%20sheets/safety%20in%20the%20home/smoking%20material-related%20fires • 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, 1691-1705; doi:10.3390/ijerph6051691 • Novotny, T.E., Hardin, S.N, Hovda, L.R., Novotny, D.J, McLean, M., Khan, S. (2011). Tobacco and cigarette butt consumption in humans and animlas. Tobacco Control. 20(Suppl 1):i17-i20. DOI:10.1136/tc.2010.043489 • Ocean Conservancy.(2011). A Rising Tide of Ocean Debris. Retrieved from http://act.oceanconservancy.org/pdf/A_Rising_Tide_full_lowres.pdf • Register, K. (2000). Cigarette Butts as Litter – Toxic as Well as Ugly. Underwater Naturalist Bulletin of the American Littorial Society. 25:2. Retrieved from http://www.longwood.edu/cleanva/ciglitterarticle.htm • Slaughter, E., Gersberg, R.M., Watanabe, K., Rudolph, J., Stransky, C., Novotny, T.E.(2011). Toxicity of cigarette butts, and their chemical components to marine and freshwater fish, Atherinops affinis and Pimephales promelas. Tobacco Control. 20(Suppl 1):i25-i29. DOI:10.1136/tc.2010.040170 • Smith, E. and Novotny, T.E.(2011). Whose butts is it? Tobacco industry research about smokers and cigarette butt waste. Tobacco Control. 20(Suppl 1):i2-i9. DOI:10.1136/tc.2010.040105 • United States Department of Agriculture [USDA] (2007). Tobacco Outlook. Retrieved from http://usda01.library.cornell.edu/usda/ers/TBS//2000s/2007/TBS-10-24-2007.pdf

17. Thank you!