Cigarette Litter Fact Sheet

CIGARETTE LITTER IN THE BAY AREA

• Littering cigarette butts in California is illegal (CA Penal Code 374) and punishable by a fine of no less than $250 for a first offense (374.4)
• All places of employment in San Francisco must have a cigarette litter receptacle or be fined no less than $80 for a first offense (San Francisco DPW Code 5.1 sec 173)
• 3 billion butts are littered every year in the San Francisco Bay Area
• San Francisco has spent $7.5 million on cigarette litter abatement annually
• San Francisco raised its cigarette litter abatement fee to $0.60 per pack—Funds go to manual street sweeping of 400 city blocks, but cigarette butts remain ubiquitous on these blocks and throughout San Francisco

EVERYWHERE

• Cigarette butts are the most littered item in the world, with 4.5 trillion butts littered every year—that’s 1.69 billion pounds (845,000 tons) of toxic plastic
• Cigarette butts are plastic
  • Filters look like paper or cotton, but are made of 12,000 individual strands of cellulose acetate, a synthetic plastic fiber that breaks down into microplastics but never fully biodegrades
  • Cellulose acetate fibers have been found embedded in the lungs of smokers
  • Filters can be melted into plastic pellets and recycled into industrial products
• Cigarette filters do not reduce the harm of smoking; they are a marketing tactic used by the tobacco industry to sell more cigarettes
• Cigarette butts are toxic and poisonous
  • Tens of thousands of infants, pets, and wildlife have been poisoned by or choked on cigarette butts because they mistakenly ate them
  • Used cigarette butts leach toxic chemicals like arsenic and nicotine, and heavy metals like lead, cadmium, chromium, and mercury into the water and soil
  • One used cigarette butt in a liter of water  killed half of the fish in that water
  • Birds line their nest with cigarette filters, creating a toxic environment
• All roads lead to the ocean
  • Cigarette butts are the number one item found at beach cleanups worldwide
  • The butts found on beaches were not necessarily littered there—butts are dropped on sidewalks or thrown from moving cars and make their way to the Bay and the ocean

HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTT!

• Surfrider’s Hold on to Your Butt program works to reduce the cigarette litter in our environment—in San Francisco, we are:
  • Educating the public about the dangers of cigarette litter
  • Installing ashcans
  • Handing out pocket ashtrays to smokers
  • Recycling cigarette butts for $1/pound through TerraCycle
  • Advocating for banning plastic filters and either eliminating filters altogether or replacing them with biodegradable alternatives
• To learn more, email hotyb@sf.surfrider.org