Bin The Butt

What begins on our streets can end in our seas.

We're calling on smokers across the UK to rethink how they dispose of their cigarette butts. Our research* shows that almost half of smokers are unaware that any cigarette they toss in the street could actually end up in the ocean through drains. 

Our recent research revealed:

• 52% of smokers who smoke everyday thought putting a cigarette down the drain was acceptable.
• 39% of smokers, equivalent to 3.6million in the UK, admitted to throwing a cigarette butt down a drain within the past month.
• 11% of smokers do not consider cigarette butts to be litter.

Dropped cigarette butts are the most common form of littering.

Cigarette butts were found on 79% of the 7,200 sites surveyed as part of our Local Environment Quality Survey of England 2017/18.

Our #BinTheButt campaign aims to raise awareness amongst smokers and highlight the link between the cigarette butt they drop on the street or down the drain and the impact it has on the marine environment².

In 2017, The United Nations Development Programme described throwing cigarette butts on the ground as ‘the last socially acceptable form of littering’ and we are determined to turn the tide and make throwing your butt on the floor as socially unacceptable as ‘lighting up’ in a pub or restaurant.

Cigarette butts can take years to breakdown, worse still they never fully biodegrade and are toxic to the marine environment.

As well as plastic, cigarette filters are comprised of thousands of chemical ingredients, including arsenic, lead and nicotine, all of which can leak into marine environments. According to studies, just one cigarette butt per litre of water is highly toxic to fish¹.

Help Blitz the Butt with the #1MillionButts challenge

Our #LitterHeroes Ambassador Jason Alexandar is challenging his fellow #LitterHeroes to help pick up one million cigarette butts to help highlight the dangers of flicking cigarette butts on the ground. We're supporting Jason's initiative, so head on over to his Blitz The Butt webpage to find out how you can get involved too.

Littered cigarette butts are poisoning our oceans. Please #BinTheButt.

This campaign is made possible thanks to support from players of People’s Postcode Lottery.

*All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. The total sample sizes were 4,146 GB adults and 502 smokers. Fieldwork was undertaken between 10^th and 11^th May 2018.  The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).

1. Research by E. Slaughter for BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal), into the effects of smoking litter on marine life: https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/20/Suppl_1/i25 (2011)
2. Findings from the United Nations Development Programme: http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/blog/2017/5/24/-Tobacco-a-threat-to-our-oceans.html (2017)