How that cigarette butt you litter is doing more environmental damage than you think!

It has become all too common for most (not all) smokers to toss their cigarette butts into storm water drains, onto the roadways, onto the footpath and to bury them in the sand at the beach when they are finished with them.

This is a sign in Sydney's Hyde Park that was filled with a small percentage of cigarette butts that smokers had dropped onto the streets of the city.

At this point you might be thinking it is only one little butt what harm can it do or it will biodegrade in no time. Well the truth is you are wrong. Cigarette butts cause major environmental problems.

Incorrectly disposed of cigarette butts:

1. Take up to 15 years to biodegrade once littered.

Studies have shown that the filter is made of cellulose acetate which is a type of plastic and that these filters never biodegrades once littered.

2. Cigarette butts leach nasty chemicals into our water ways when it rains. One butt can pollute up to 500 liters or 132 gallons of water.

This image is only a small handful of the nasty chemicals that get leached into our soil and water ways affecting our water quality and food.

3. Wildlife often mistake cigarette butts for food, eats them and then die.

4. Cigarette butts look untidy and are not very nice for others.

Taking all the above into account and the fact that 4.3 trillion cigarette butts are incorrectly disposed of each year you can only imagine the major environmental problem that is caused.

Remember this!