Filtered cigarette butts should have new requirements for disposal, says Public Health Professor Tom Novotny after a San Diego State University (SDSU) study revealed filter-tipped cigarette butts to be toxic to marine and fresh-water fish.

According to Novotny and other members of the Cigarette Butt Advisory Group, used cigarette filters ought to be classified as hazardous waste since toxins present in them harm wildlife.

“It is toxic at rather low concentrations,” Novotny explains. “Even one butt in a liter of water can kill the fish in a period of 96 hours.”

Novotny says one way of reducing the amount of cigarette filters in our environment is stronger enforcement of anti-litter laws and non-smoking areas. Fines, waste fees or special taxes are other options, if the money is used to pay for cigarette butt recycling. A third alternative is to force manufacturers to pick up the bill for clean-up costs incurred by their products.

A thrown away cigarette butt is a combination of the original plastic filter and the compounds caught by the filter while the cigarette was being smoked. The plastic makes the filter non-biodegradable and the trapped compounds are toxic until they eventually biodegrades into the environment.

According to Novotny, cigarette butts are the number one littered substance in the world and have been the number one single item picked up on beach cleanup days in San Diego for several years.

“When they unconsciously throw their butts onto the ground, it’s not just litter, it’s a toxic hazardous waste product,” Novotny says. “And that’s what we’re trying to say. So that may be regulated at the local or state level. And we hope people will be more conscious about what they do with these cigarette butts.”

The study was carried out by SDSU Public Health Professor Rick Gersberg.

Picture by: Chris Sanderson, in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.