Every year, 6 billion cigarettes are smoked worldwide, 64% of which are discarded in public spaces. This waste can travel thousands of kilometers and contaminate different ecosystems, often found in urban areas, but also in nature, including the oceans.
In Spain, the National Committee for the Prevention of Smoking (CNPT) estimates that some 89 million cigarettes are smoked every day, which means 32,455 million filters discarded annually. Where do you think they end up?
Cigarette butts contain more than 4000 chemicals, such as cadmium, arsenic, nicotine, toluene, and other components such as methanol, acetic acid, ammonia, stearic acid and tar, of which 300 are toxic and dangerous and 30 of them are carcinogenic!
Ingestion of a cigarette butt in infants and young children causes weakness, convulsions and fatal respiratory crises. Just one could be fatal.
Cigarette butts thrown on the ground in the city are carried by rainwater, rivers and sea currents where a single unit contaminates up to 50 liters of water, being one of the greatest threats to the planet.
They also reach sanitation systems, where they come into contact with water and release chemicals. Due to their small size, they pass through the filters of sewage treatment plants, reach rivers and the ocean, where birds, fish and other animals can ingest them and die because they cannot digest them.
The Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) assures that many forest fires are caused by badly extinguished cigarette butts.
One by one they are thrown to the ground, in the park where children and pets play, sunk in the sand of a beach where castles are built, to end up sooner or later in our seas and oceans. One after another, and one more.
It’s time to wake up! Eco Moment is your chance to do good to the Planet! Be part of the change!