FACTS OF SMOKING

FACTS OF SMOKING

• The average smoker smokes 10,000 cigarettes a year.
• Cigarette butts are the most commonly littered item in the U.S.
• Over 100 billion cigarette butts, weighing 100 million pounds, end up as litter each year.
• Cigarette filters are made of cellulose acetate, a plastic that takes decades to decompose.
• 28% of all ocean and beach debris is cigarette butts. They have been found in the stomachs of fish, birds, whales and other marine creatures that mistake them for food.
• Over 858 civilian deaths, 1,591 civilian injuries, and $480 million in direct property damage occur each year due to over 25,000 cigarette-caused fires.
• 1 in 4 victims of cigarette-caused fires is not the smoker whose cigarette started the fire.
• Annual cigarette butt litter, end on end, measures more than 2 million miles. That is 337 roundtrips from Los Angeles to New York.
• Imagine a 7 foot wide cigarette butt highway stretching across the country.