1. Tobacco Hurts the Earth
Environmental Impact

2. Dangers of Cigarette Butts Cigarette Butts and the Environment
Learning Points
Anatomy of a Cigarette
Dangers of Cigarette Butts
Cigarette Butts and the Environment
Explain what students will learn from this presentation.

3. Anatomy of a Cigarette
Highlights
Cigarette Butt: left and discarded after people smoke a cigarette

4. Cigarette Butts
Cigarette filters are made of cellulose acetate, which is bad for the environment. It is not biodegradable (meaning they do not break down naturally over time)
Filters do not make cigarettes safer.
Highlights
Cellulose acetate is the acetate ester of cellulose. Cellulose acetate is used as a film base in photography, as a component in some adhesives, and as a frame material for eyeglasses; it is also used as a synthetic fiber and in the manufacture of cigarette filters and playing cards.

5. A lit cigarette has more than 7,000 chemicals.
Highlights
Cigarette butts leach toxic chemicals into the environment including lead, arsenic, and nicotine – the same toxic chemicals found in secondhand smoke.
Cigarette butts are also poisonous to children, pets, and wildlife.
A lit cigarette has more than 7,000 chemicals.
A cigarette butt contains these same 7,000 chemicals!

6. How are cigarettes harmful to the environment?
The toxic chemicals in cigarette butts are a threat to our aquatic ecosystems.
In 2010, over one million cigarettes were removed from California beaches and inland waterways as part of the annual International Coastal Cleanup.
Cigarette butts are poisonous when ingested by children or animals. Just one may be lethal.
Highlights
Discarded cigarette butts are not only a threat to wildlife but the chemicals contained in a single butt is toxic to the environment.

7. The harms of cigarette production
Tobacco companies chop down 600 million trees a year to make their deadly products.
1 tree makes 15 packs of cigarettes.
Tobacco farming involves
Heavy use of pesticides
Deforestation
Depleting the soil of nutrients
Highlights
Also, workers in tobacco fields are exposed to pesticides that can cause nervous system damage, cancer, and birth defects.
Every year, 27 million pounds of pesticides are used to grow tobacco.

8. Bad Butts! Cigarette butts are #1 trash item picked up on roadways.
In 2010, in just the U.S. alone, 31% of all garbage collected was cigarette butts.
Cities spend $10,000,000 cleaning up cigarette butts each year.
Highlights
Cigarette butts are the most numerically frequent litter in the world. An estimated 1.69 billion pounds of butts wind up as toxic trash each year.

9. Where do cigarette butts most likely end up?
Many butts are flicked on the ground.
They then travel, via storm drain, into creeks and rivers.
Which in turn leads to the ocean.
Highlights
If you put a cigarette butt into a liter of water and then put a small fish into the water, the fish will die.

10. What can we do to reduce cigarette waste?
Smoke or tobacco free policies
Educate about the impact of tobacco waste on the environment
Cigarette butt clean up campaigns
April Kahoot: