Cigarettes lead as most littered item in the world

Cigarette butts are the most littered item in the world as of this year. According to The Motley Fool, approximately 4.5 trillion cigarette ends are tossed everywhere except a trash can every year around the world.

Over 292 billion cigarettes were sold in the US alone in 2011. That averages to about 947 cigarettes for every person. They are being discarded in places everywhere from the beach to local parks. The habit of littering has become part of smoker’s daily lives, yet nothing is being done to fix it.

Recently, the US has seen a spike in e-cigarette sales. Though they claim to be a more “healthy” alternative to smoking regular cigarettes, The Huffington Post found otherwise.

Cities like Vancouver, Canada have taken the initiative to rid their city of this bad habit of littering. They have placed 110 bins labeled “butt bins” for cigarette users to toss their used cigarettes rather than on the floor.

Hopefully other big cities take after Vancouver and make the effort to rid the world of this horrible habit. If littering is not enough of an issue to change minds, then people should read this to see what it does to innocent animals who suffer at the hands of litterbugs.

Image: Wikimedia Commons