Every year 4,500 billion end up in the environment, of which 14 in Italy alone: in addition to releasing lead and arsenic, cigarette filters represent over 23% of the waste found on European coasts.
Cigarette butts are the most dispersed waste in the environment: around 4,500 billion are abandoned every year and, of these, 14 billion in Italy. In Europe, cigarette butts make up over 23% of waste on beaches, on average 77 are found every 100 meters of coastline on our coasts.
The effects on ecosystems and human health are significant. Traditional cigarettes, in addition to the plastic filter, contain highly polluting substances, such as arsenic, lead and formaldehyde.
Microplastics. And not only that
A recent study conducted by the University of Istanbul on 88 cigarette packs from 18 countries, produced by various tobacco companies, highlighted microplastic contamination in 94% of the samples, in quantities ranging from 1.6 to 29.9 microplastics per gram of tobacco: the majority was in the form of fragments of polyethylene, polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate from the production process.
Cigarette filters are also made of plastic, composed mainly of cellulose acetate, a semi-synthetic substance among the most common disposable plastics in the world.
