The Washington State Department of Transportation responds to about 40 brush or grass fires along state highways each year. Responding to roadside fires can cost taxpayers up to $100,000 an acre. The fine for throwing a lit cigarette from a vehicle is $1,025.
But according to the National Fire Protection Agency, upwards of 90,000 fires every year in the United States alone are caused by cigarettes. Cigarette-induced fires claim hundreds of lives in the United States each year, and injure thousands more, not to mention the millions of dollars that go up in smoke in property damage.
- According to the American Burn Association, about 900 people in the United States die each year in fires started by cigarettes, and about 2,500 are injured. About 100 of the fire deaths each year are children and nonsmokers. Nationally, annual human and property costs of fires caused by careless smoking total about $6 billion. In 1997, there were more than 130,000 cigarette related fires.
- According to the National Fire Protection Association, cigarette-caused fires result in more than 1,000 civilian deaths, 3,000 critical injuries (many among firefighters), and $400 million in direct property damage each year. (Source: Albany Times Union, June 13, 2003)
- According to the 2006 U.S. Fire Experience report, there is an estimated fire in an outside property every 38 seconds. Injuries, deaths, and property damages are all results of this problem every year because of the homes nearby in the wildfires path. Overall, smoldering cigarettes are the leading cause of fire deaths in the United States. In 2001 alone, unattended or discarded cigarettes caused 31,200 fires nationwide, resulting in 830 deaths, thousands of serious injuries and $386 million in direct property damage, according to the National Fire Protection Association. Unfortunately, wildlife is a common casualty of this neglect.
- Two of Britain’s worst disasters were caused by lighted fag ends dropped by smokers: Bradford City Football fire in which 40 people died in 1985 King’s Cross Underground station fire in 1987 when 31 people died
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- 4-17-09 Careless use of smoking material has been cited as the cause of a fire last month that did an estimated $20,000 damage to a residence affiliated with Little Friends Inc. of Naperville.
- March 2004, Richmond, Virginia: Cigarette butts tossed in a jammed trash chute likely sparked a March 26 fire that destroyed 26 buildings and caused $20 million in damage, fire officials said Thursday. Arson has been ruled out, a preliminary report released by the city said. The wind-whipped fire started about noon in a five-story apartment building under construction to house Virginia Commonwealth students. A chute used by workers to toss debris and sawdust was likely the source of the fire when still-smoldering cigarette butts were tossed into the chute with other trash. Wind gusts of 20 mph blew embers onto homes, some of them six blocks away. It took 200 firefighters about five hours to control the fire. One death was blamed on the fire when power to the area was shut off and a woman’s oxygen tank quit. (Source: CBS 6-TV, Richmond)
- January 2001, a motorist driving along Interstate 8 in San Diego County flicked a cigarette butt onto the center median, sparking a fire that eventually burned more than 10,000 acres, destroyed 16 homes and charred 64 vehicles.
- Thursday January 4, 2001 ALPINE, Calif. (Reuters) – A cigarette thrown from a car window by a careless smoker may have sparked a brush fire that forced hundreds of evacuations and hopscotched across 11,000 rural acres near San Diego this week, officials said on Thursday. “It was some kind of smoking material and we’re pretty sure it was a cigarette,” said Laura Lowes, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry. The incident is still under investigation, a San Diego Sheriff’s spokeswoman said.
- September 18, 2002: CAMP PENDLETON (CA)– A wildfire that scorched 247 acres on the base Monday afternoon was started by a cigarette butt tossed by a passing motorist, fire investigators said. The fire burned for about four hours along Vandegrift Boulevard, near the airfield, before firefighters got it under control. Scott Simpson, an investigator with the Camp Pendleton Fire Department, said there are thousands of cigarette butts on the ground in that area, but he was able to find the specific one that ignited Monday’s fire. “
Cigarette litter is a huge problem worldwide and a causes massive long term damage to the environment. It is a growing problem too often overlooked or underestimated.
It’s partly a problem of perception. People often seem to think that their tiny piece of disgarded smoking waste is too small to make a difference – or persuade themselves that everyone ‘else does it so why bother to dispose considerately’.
Indeed, many cigarette smokers simply don’t think their cigarette butt will make any difference to the environment or assume that someone at the Council or Municipality is paid to pick up litter so there is no need for them to dispose of their cigarette ends considerately.
It does not matter that cigarette ends are small – just like chewing gum – they ‘are’ litter as defined under UK law and local authorities across the UK are now levying on the spot Fixed Penalty Notices of up to £100 where litter wardens catch someone dropping cigarette ends or gum.
In the UK it’s possible for fines of up to £2,500 to be applied in a Magistrates Court for dropping litter however small and Councils are taking a much tougher line to help change people’s behaviour.
Research has shown that many smokers believe they are actually being responsible by dropping their cigarette end onto the pavement to grind it out under foot and make sure their cigarette end cannot start a fire.
The following facts gathered from Encams (Keep Britain Tidy), CPRE (Campaign for the Protection of Rural England) and other research studies highlight the scale of the problem and the threats to the environment posed by inconsiderately discarded micro litter such as cigarette ends and chewed gum.
• The most frequently cited reason for gum and butts littering is no convenient point of disposal – no bins or not enough bins.
• Chewing gum is used by 28 million people in the UK.
• 200 million cigarette butts are thrown away each day in the UK. (Source:ENCAMS)
• In the UK alone more than a billion packs of chewing gum are sold each year.
• Each piece of gum dropped costs from 10p to 30p remove.
• It costs approximately £20,000 to clean up chewing gum in an average town centre. The clean up has to be carried out several times each year. (Source:ENCAMS)
• 122 tons of cigarette butts and cigarette related litter is dropped every day in the UK. (Source: ENCAMS)
• It takes 17 weeks to remove chewing gum from Oxford Street, but only 10 days for the street to be covered in gum again.
• Street cleaning in the UK costs upwards of £413m each year– this is paid for by council taxes.
• Chewed gum takes up to 5 years to biodegrade.
• As the anti-smoking lobby’s campaign gains momentum, employers are banning smoking from not only indoor areas but outdoor areas too – employees are forced out on to public
spaces where the facilities are limited to non-existent.
• A full smoking ban in pubs and clubs is likely to substantially increase the cigarette litter burden.
• In Ireland, 61% of people believe litter from smoking has risen since the Republic introduced a similar ban back in March 2004. ■ “Without proper facilities,smokers will turn our streets into a giant ashtray,”said Alan Woods,Chief Executive of Keep Britain Tidy. “Cigarette butts,boxes and matches are already our biggest litter problem,blighting 90% of our high streets – so we need to act now and ensure smokers have what they need to dispose of their rubbish correctly.”
• In the UK,cigarettes account for over 40% of street litter.(Source:ENCAMS)
• Up to 3.5 billion deposits of gum have at one time or another been spat or dropped on to our streets.
• 92 per cent ofcity paving stones have had gum stuck to them.
Local Authorities across the world work hard to stem the flow of this kind of litter to prevent it wreaking havoc on the environment.
The answer is a combination of provision (of better more convenient disposal facilities), education (communicating the damage caused by this kind of litter and making people aware of considerate disposal options) and enforcement (penalizing people who drop cigarette and other forms of litter).
The problem is increasingly attracting the attention of product designers and developers.
Smartstreets, we have developed some highly innovative, award winning new disposal solutions for cigarette and gum litter which have been proven to massively reduce smoking related litter where employed.
The multiple patent applied Smartstreets-Smartbin has won two international product design awards and for the first time, enables local authorities and street scene managers to install more litter bins in more places without adding clutter to the built environment by providing litter bins solutions that look good and retrofit ‘around’ exiting uprights such as light columns and sign posts as well as fitting onto walls and railings.
Complementing existing street furniture and providing a neat, safe and effective cigarette bin in regularly spaced positions has been shown to almost eradicate cigarette litter in high-footfall areas.
Manchester Council in the UK monitored their Smartstreets-Smartbins and proved that a twin, post-mounted Smartbin will gather up to 25,000 cigarette butts and pieces of gum every year. To see some galleries of over 40 Coucil customer installations around the world you can visit http://www.smartclients.co.uk or http://www.smartstreets.eu
Manchester Council’s independent trials showed that a network of 300 Smartstreets-Smartbins in high footfall areas (such as the networks in the City of London and the London Boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey and Enfield) will collect up to 7.5 million cigarette butts and pieces of gum per year – that’s almost 30 metric tonnes of micro litter kept off the streets by these post mounted cigarette litter bins.
Smartstreets are product designers who manufacture a wide range of unique cigarette and gum litter solutions – apart from Smartstreets-Smartbins (post and wall, railing mounted cigarette bins and gum bins) their product range includes Smartstreets-Minibins (personal, pocket ashtrays), Smartstreets-Gumsticks (gum board style solutions) and now, quick fit bicycle parking stations for Councils and private businesses which retro-fit to existing sign posts to provide dedicated bicycle parking using existing street furniture to reduce clutter.
Cigarette litter is a menace and a massive threat to the environment the world over, If you would like further information about Smartstreets range of cigarette and gum litter solutions, please visit http://www.smartstreets.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 8742 3223.
Further web galleries online at http://www.smartstreets.eu and http://www.smartclients.co.uk
AWARDS: Smartstreets Ltd won an Honourable Mention in the Red Dot product Design Awards for the Smartstreets-Smartbin in 2008 (5,885 entries from 39 nations) and was awarded a Bronze Spark Award for product design in the USA in November 2009.