title: Whose butt is it? tobacco industry research about smokers and cigarette butt waste.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Cigarette filters are made of non-biodegradable cellulose acetate. As much as 766,571 metric tons of butts wind up as litter worldwide per year. Numerous proposals have been made to prevent or mitigate cigarette butt pollution, but none has been effective; cigarette butts are consistently found to be the single most collected item in beach clean-ups and litter surveys.
  
  
  METHODS
  We searched the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu) and http://tobaccodocuments.org using a snowball strategy beginning with keywords (eg, 'filter', 'biodegradable', 'butts'). Data from approximately 680 documents, dated 1959-2006, were analysed using an interpretive approach.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The tobacco industry has feared being held responsible for cigarette litter for more than 20 years. Their efforts to avoid this responsibility included developing biodegradable filters, creating anti-litter campaigns, and distributing portable and permanent ashtrays. They concluded that biodegradable filters would probably encourage littering and would not be marketable, and that smokers were defensive about discarding their tobacco butts and not amenable to anti-litter efforts.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Tobacco control and environmental advocates should develop partnerships to compel the industry to take financial and practical responsibility for cigarette butt waste.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of California San Francisco, Box 0612, San Francisco, California 94143, USA. libby.smith@ucsf.edu
authors.forename: Elizabeth A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Thomas E
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Novotny
mesh_terms: D004777:Environment; D005374:Filtration; D015386:Hazardous Substances; D006256:Hazardous Waste; D006801:Humans; D012106:Research; D012907:Smoking; D012941:Social Responsibility; D019460:Tobacco Industry
chemical_list: D015386:Hazardous Substances; D006256:Hazardous Waste