Litter Retrieval Tokens

Made from plastic, cigarette butts are the most littered item in Australia[1]. Most recent estimates suggest that up to 8.9 billion cigarette butts are littered into the Australian environment every year[2].

As EPA NSW notes, they are easily carried in stormwater runoff through drainage systems and eventually to local streams, rivers, and waterways[3]. 

According to au.wales.com[4], a Local Environment Quality Survey of England 2017/18 showed that 52% of smokers who smoke every day thought putting a cigarette down the drain was acceptable and 39% of smokers admitted to throwing a cigarette butt down a drain within the past month.

In Australia, it has been reported from litter audits that nearly one third of littered cigarette butts make it into our oceans and waterways[5]. Globally, this number is estimated at 40%[6].

With a plastic filter made from cellulose acetate[7], cigarette butts are photodegradable[8], not biodegradable. Tobacco producer, Philip Morris International, notes that it can take up to 15 years for a cigarette butt to break down[9]. During this process, thousands of plastic micro fibres are created[10]. 

Using the littering rates and the average weight of a cigarette butt[11], it can be estimated that at least 580 tonnes of plastic tobacco filters are littered into Australian waterways annually. With 15 years of litter accumulating, over 8,800 tonnes of cigarette butts would currently be in our waterways. According to Macedo et al., 2011 and Santos et al., 2005, cigarette butts could accidently be ingested by some marine species (such as fish, birds, and whales) during feeding. There is also research to suggest they enter our food stream[12].

Additionally, a WHO paper highlights research that has shown that harmful chemicals leached from discarded butts, which include nicotine, arsenic and heavy metals, can be acutely toxic to aquatic organisms[13].

The cost of cleaning up cigarette butt litter is estimated at $73.3 million annually[14], which is taken from Australian council and government agency budgets, with rate payers currently footing the bill. A report prepared by The Centre for International Economics has separately identified that there is a Willingness to Pay by residents of NSW, Queensland and Victoria of $119 million annually to eliminate cigarette butt litter[15].

With over 7,000 chemicals[16] and research showing that each butt can contaminate up to 40 litres of water[17], a San Diego State University suggested that the chemicals leached from one smoked cigarette butt were capable of killing half of the fish present in a one-litre bucket of water[18].

The impacts to our waterways and ocean are greater than just plastic pollution. Based on the amount littered in Australian waterways, it is estimated that over 117 billion litres of water are polluted annually by toxic cigarette butts.

With declining water quality and marine debris both being listed as threats in the 2019 Outlook Report for the Great Barrier Reef[19], now is the time to take action on plastic tobacco filters.