We’ve all seen cigarette butts on the sidewalk, on the beach or lying in the grass, but may not have realized the toll those cotton-like plastic fibers take on the environment.

The cost of marine ecosystem damage and waste management related to the plastics in cigarette packaging and butts is approximately $26 billion per year, or $186 billion each decade, according to a new analysis conducted by Deborah K. Sy, a global health lawyer who is the head of global public policy and strategy at the Global Center for Good Governance in Tobacco Control, a press release from the British Medical Journal (BMJ) said.

Sy emphasized that, while the costs of cigarette waste may seem minute in proportion to the overall human and economic toll of tobacco, the impacts, which are cumulative, can be avoided.

“Although this amount is small compared with the annual economic losses from tobacco (US$1.4 trillion per year) and may appear insignificant compared with the 8 million deaths attributable to tobacco each year, these environmental costs should not be downplayed as these are accumulating and are preventable,” Sy said in the press release.

Sy pointed out that, while progress has been made to develop policies banning or reducing single use plastics globally, plastics in cigarettes have been left out.

It’s a big oversight, however, as cigarette filters — which consist of single-use plastic — are the most prevalent waste item collected in the world.

The analysis, “Tobacco industry accountability for marine pollution: country and global estimates,” was published in the journal Tobacco Control.

“Efforts to reduce plastic pollution should address cigarette filters as toxic, widespread and preventable sources of marine pollution. Countries may develop specific estimates of waste management and ecosystem costs in order to assign tobacco industry accountability for this pollution,” Sy wrote in the study.

Sy used publicly sourced data for cigarette sales, marine and terrestrial plastic waste from cigarettes and clean-up costs in an attempt to measure the economic toll of the toxic waste of cigarette products worldwide in order to better inform environmental protection agencies and tobacco control, BMJ said.

Data sources for the study included the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Bank, the World Wildlife Fund and The Tobacco Atlas.

“Cigarette filters have been polluting our oceans and land for at least five decades, and these trash items may have a carrier effect with the toxic chemicals leached from them. Human and ecosystem impacts of this toxic chemical accumulation are unknown,” Sy wrote.

The weight of each plastic cigarette filter, along with the weight of the package, was included in Sy’s calculations.

Sy estimated the yearly and decade-long predictions of the economic costs to the environment of cigarettes based on tonnage. Projections for an entire decade were used because cigarette butts reportedly take a decade to break down.

The total reflects estimates of the expense of cleaning up and disposing of the overall amount of plastic generated by sales of filtered cigarettes that end up in landfills, the ocean or out in the environment.

The total annual cost estimate of $26 billion from cigarette plastics waste consists of $5 billion for waste management and $20.7 billion in damage to marine ecosystems, or $186 billion per decade.

The greatest number of cigarette butts that end up as waste are found primarily in low and middle income countries, and the estimates suggest that the cigarette plastics pollution-related costs are likely highest in Indonesia, China, Japan, the Philippines and Bangladesh.

Sy said that, though the figures are estimates, they are most likely conservative due to the fact that chemicals and toxic metals found in cigarette butts were not taken into account and accumulate over time, which makes them more toxic than most plastic waste.

“The general estimates provided here could provide fiscal evidence of the need to mitigate tobacco plastic waste pollution,” Sy suggested, and the data could aid “in assigning industry responsibility for these losses, including that of the [tobacco industry],” according to BMJ.

Sy added that policies to put the responsibility for cleaning up tobacco waste on the tobacco industry are being considered by the European Union, France, the United Kingdom and the United States.

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