In its 2023 ESG Report, Walgreens Boots Alliance proudly touts its many initiatives to reduce the use of plastics and waste in general, but oddly ignores cigarettes and the resulting environmental harm they create. Cigarette butts are the most common form of litter in the world, as approximately 5.6 trillion cigarettes are smoked every year worldwide. Cigarette waste constitutes an estimated 30% of the total litter (by count) on US shorelines, waterways and on land.
The World Health Organization states that products such as cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes add to the build-up of plastic pollution. Cigarette filters contain microplastics and make up the second-highest form of plastic pollution worldwide. Tobacco product waste also contains over 7000 toxic chemicals, including known human carcinogens. Additionally, “every year the tobacco industry costs the world more than 8 million human lives, 600 million trees, 200,000 hectares of land, 22 billion tonnes of water and 84 million tonnes of CO2.” Despite claims by the tobacco industry that tobacco use the United States is declining, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that the
number of cigarettes that the largest cigarette companies in the United States sold to wholesalers and retailers nationwide increased from 202.9 billion in 2019 to 203.7 billion in 2020. In 2022, drug stores and pharmacies in the U.S. sold approximately $1.3 billion of cigarettes. It is estimated that over 80%, or over 4 trillion cigarette butts are littered each year. In the United States, some 263 billion cigarettes were sold, and, assuming 80% were disposed of improperly, this would mean about 77 million pounds of cigarette-butt litter are dropped on the ground each year.
A study (Attitudes, Beliefs, and Behaviors about Cigarette-Butt Littering among College-Aged Adults in the United States) published in 2022 concluded that smokers’ knowledge of cigarette butts’ toxicity, biodegradability, harmfulness to human and marine health was a key determinant in how they disposed of used cigarettes. In fact, “Smokers who thought of cigarette butts as litter were 3.68 (95% CI 2.04 to 6.66) times more likely to properly dispose of their butts.