Cigarette butt litter is a huge and pervasive problem. Across Australia it consistently makes up over 50% of the litter stream. Research shows that many smokers do not identify cigarette butts as litter and have no idea of the environmental damage they cause. Litter thrown carelessly on the street gets washed out to the bay, where they can be eaten by marine animals and birds, or release toxic chemicals into the water.

If you are a smoker, please make sure you bin your butt! You can also carry a small personal cigarette butt canister (portable ashtray) with you, so that if there is no bin nearby, you don't send your butt out to sea.

If you are a non-smoker, don't be shy to remind your smoking friends that dropping their butts on the street is not on!

If you witness somebody dropping their cigarette butt on the ground, please call the Litter Report Line on 1800 35 25 55 or download the Confidential Litter Report Form

A basic infringement starts at $117 (1 penalty unit) - eg. extinguished cigarette
A general infringement starts at $234 (2 penalty units)- eg. still burning cigarette

The fines raised from convicted littering offenses goes towards supporting environmentally beneficial projects.

Bin it, or Swim in it!

Cigarette Butt Litter Statistics

• 95% of the litter on beaches comes from suburban streets through the stormwater system (Melbourne Water)
• One in ten cigarette butts ends up in the bay or our waterways (Melbourne Water)
• Butts have been found in the stomachs of young birds, sea turtles and other marine creatures (EcoRecycle 1998)
• Over 8,500 litter fines were issued in 2001/02 by the EPA through its litter report line, up 1000 from the year before. Over 90% of these fines were for cigarette butt littering. The majority of these fines were made by ordinary people

Filters: How long do they take to break down

• Estimates on the biodegradability of cigarette butts are hugely varied. Some organisations state they take up to 15 years to break down, while research by the filter manufactures themselves find that cigarette butts take the following length of time to biodegrade:
  
  o 1-2 months in aerobic (with air) conditions
  o 6-9 months in anaerobic (without air) conditions
  o 12 months in fresh water
  o 36 months or longer in sea-water (Clean Up Australia 1997; NSW EPA 2001)

Toxicity

• Cigarette butts may seem small, but with an estimated 4.5 trillion butts (worldwide) littered every year, the toxic chemicals add up! (Cigarette Litter Organisation 2001)
• Chemicals can leach from cigarette butts within one hour of contact with water. The chemicals that leach from cigarette butts are toxic to small crustaceans (cladocerans) at concentrations as low as one cigarette butt per 40 litres (Register 2000; Warne et al. 2002). Toxicity persists for at least seven days (Warne et al. 2002). Studies have shown that for some species toxic effect may occur at concentrations of one cigarette butt per 4000 litres (Warne et al. 2002).
  

Fires

• Flicked butts can cause fires. The 1995 NSW Fire Brigade Annual Report found that cigarettes and matches directly caused over half of all fires in the built environment. As many as 1,200 grass and bushfires each year are attributed to cigarettes.

Victorian Litter Action Alliance (VLAA), 2009.
For more information, go to the Victorian Litter Action Alliance website.