It’s partly a problem of perception. People often seem to think that their tiny piece of disgarded smoking waste is too small to make a difference – or persuade themselves that everyone ‘else does it so why bother to dispose considerately’.

Indeed, many cigarette smokers simply don’t think their cigarette butt will make any difference to the environment or assume that someone at the Council or Municipality is paid to pick up litter so there is no need for them to dispose of their cigarette ends considerately.

It does not matter that cigarette ends are small – just like chewing gum – they ‘are’ litter as defined under UK law and local authorities across the UK are now levying on the spot Fixed Penalty Notices of up to £100 where litter wardens catch someone dropping cigarette ends or gum.

In the UK it’s possible for fines of up to £2,500 to be applied in a Magistrates Court for dropping litter however small and Councils are taking a much tougher line to help change people’s behaviour.

Research has shown that many smokers believe they are actually being responsible by dropping their cigarette end onto the pavement to grind it out under foot and make sure their cigarette end cannot start a fire.

The following facts gathered from Encams (Keep Britain Tidy), CPRE (Campaign for the Protection of Rural England) and other research studies highlight the scale of the problem and the threats to the environment posed by inconsiderately discarded micro litter such as cigarette ends and chewed gum.

“¢ The most frequently cited reason for gum and butts littering is no convenient point of disposal – no bins or not enough bins.

“¢ Chewing gum is used by 28 million people in the UK.

“¢ 200 million cigarette butts are thrown away each day in the UK. (Source:ENCAMS)

“¢ In the UK alone more than a billion packs of chewing gum are sold each year.

“¢ Each piece of gum dropped costs from 10p to 30p remove.

“¢ It costs approximately £20,000 to clean up chewing gum in an average town centre. The clean up has to be carried out several times each year. (Source:ENCAMS)

“¢ 122 tons of cigarette butts and cigarette related litter is dropped every day in the UK. (Source: ENCAMS)

“¢ It takes 17 weeks to remove chewing gum from Oxford Street, but only 10 days for the street to be covered in gum again.

“¢ Street cleaning in the UK costs upwards of £413m each year- this is paid for by council taxes.

“¢ Chewed gum takes up to 5 years to biodegrade.

“¢ As the anti-smoking lobby’s campaign gains momentum, employers are banning smoking from not only indoor areas but outdoor areas too – employees are forced out on to public

spaces where the facilities are limited to non-existent.

“¢ A full smoking ban in pubs and clubs is likely to substantially increase the cigarette litter burden.

“¢ In Ireland, 61% of people believe litter from smoking has risen since the Republic introduced a similar ban back in March 2004. â–  “Without proper facilities,smokers will turn our streets into a giant ashtray,”said Alan Woods,Chief Executive of Keep Britain Tidy. “Cigarette butts,boxes and matches are already our biggest litter problem,blighting 90% of our high streets – so we need to act now and ensure smokers have what they need to dispose of their rubbish correctly.”

“¢ In the UK,cigarettes account for over 40% of street litter.(Source:ENCAMS)

“¢ Up to 3.5 billion deposits of gum have at one time or another been spat or dropped on to our streets.

“¢ 92 per cent ofcity paving stones have had gum stuck to them.

Local Authorities across the world work hard to stem the flow of this kind of litter to prevent it wreaking havoc on the environment.

The answer is a combination of provision (of better more convenient disposal facilities), education (communicating the damage caused by this kind of litter and making people aware of considerate disposal options) and enforcement (penalizing people who drop cigarette and other forms of litter).

The problem is increasingly attracting the attention of product designers and developers.

Smartstreets, we have developed some highly innovative, award winning new disposal solutions for cigarette and gum litter which have been proven to massively reduce smoking related litter where employed.

The multiple patent applied Smartstreets-Smartbin has won two international product design awards and for the first time, enables local authorities and street scene managers to install more litter bins in more places without adding clutter to the built environment by providing litter bins solutions that look good and retrofit ‘around’ exiting uprights such as light columns and sign posts as well as fitting onto walls and railings.

Complementing existing street furniture and providing a neat, safe and effective cigarette bin in regularly spaced positions has been shown to almost eradicate cigarette litter in high-footfall areas.

Manchester Council in the UK monitored their Smartstreets-Smartbins and proved that a twin, post-mounted Smartbin will gather up to 25,000 cigarette butts and pieces of gum every year. To see some galleries of over 40 Coucil customer installations around the world you can visit http://www.smartclients.co.uk or http://www.smartstreets.eu

Manchester Council’s independent trials showed that a network of 300 Smartstreets-Smartbins in high footfall areas (such as the networks in the City of London and the London Boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey and Enfield) will collect up to 7.5 million cigarette butts and pieces of gum per year – that’s almost 30 metric tonnes of micro litter kept off the streets by these post mounted cigarette litter bins.

Smartstreets are product designers who manufacture a wide range of unique cigarette and gum litter solutions – apart from Smartstreets-Smartbins (post and wall, railing mounted cigarette bins and gum bins) their product range includes Smartstreets-Minibins (personal, pocket ashtrays), Smartstreets-Gumsticks (gum board style solutions) and now, quick fit bicycle parking stations for Councils and private businesses which retro-fit to existing sign posts to provide dedicated bicycle parking using existing street furniture to reduce clutter.

Cigarette litter is a menace and a massive threat to the environment the world over, If you would like further information about Smartstreets range of cigarette and gum litter solutions, please visit http://www.smartstreets.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 8742 3223.

Further web galleries online at http://www.smartstreets.eu and http://www.smartclients.co.uk

AWARDS: Smartstreets Ltd won an Honourable Mention in the Red Dot product Design Awards for the Smartstreets-Smartbin in 2008 (5,885 entries from 39 nations) and was awarded a Bronze Spark Award for product design in the USA in November 2009.

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If we look at the composition of a cigarette:

– Paper Tube : Made from paper : is biodegradable.
– Tobacco : Plant material : is biodegradable.
– Fiber filter : Made from wood pulp (Cellulose acetate) : is biodegradable.

Now, the filter fibers are held together with something called triacetin plasticizer, which is a firming agent. This also however is biodegradable.

Issues may present due to environmental factors such as lack of moisture, or sever cold. However, any environmental factors slowing the decomposition of a cigarette filter will also slow the decomposition of any other biodegradable product.

After searching online for various companies and researching prices, I decided to buy from http://www.FreshSmoking.com . They’ve got the best prices, their starter kits are only $49.95 and the rest of their accessories and cartridges are much cheaper than any I’ve seen. Also, their customer service was amazing and I received my order lightening fast. I highly recommend them.

first, you’re pulling your numbers from websites & organizations that are organized around stopping smoking? no doubt all of the facts from buttout and preventcigarettelitter.org, then, are completely accurate and don’t represent any pandering, distortion, or twisting of facts to further a particular outcome. people shouldn’t cite to wikipedia, much less an activist group, when it comes to putting a spine in your argument.

second, i’m not seeing where on the preventcigarettelitter.org site where it says cigarette littering is increasing. i see the 28% drop in people smoking, but the website follows that by saying that cigarettes are still the number one most littered item in the united states. just because less people are smoking doesn’t mean that more cigarettes are being flicked into the street by remaining smokers. i think the mistake made here is that the author concluded that the number of butts in planters and gutters must be a fixed number in order to remain at the #1 most-littered-item spot.

perhaps we should consider that, much like smoking itself, littering is on the decline as americans as a whole have been taking a more active role in keeping their neighborhoods and communities clean. you see, if 28% less people are smoking now, but also 28% less people are littering, cigarette butts will probably stay atop the garbage heap.

i agree with the thrust of this blog; people probably should quit smoking regardless of what they do with their butts, and certainly shouldn’t be throwing butts into storm drains and planter boxes. however, using one-sided references and making questionable conclusions isn’t the best way to present the issue.

With eco consciousness becoming the cool thing to follow, it might make a difference to remind smokers that their butts aren’t biodegradable. It won’t necessarily get them to quit (and shouldn’t – it’s a valid personal choice) but maybe it will help them remember to be more conscious of what they smoke and where they toss their filters.

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