According to the Cigarette Butt Pollution Project, cigarette butts are the most common waste in the oceans right after plastics. The filters are made of acetate fiber, which, like the HEETS for IQOS, come from natural materials, but the decay takes decades and it is also a great danger to animals.
Cigarette butts numbers
- 5 trillion pieces of cigarettes are produced every year.
- 20 filters weigh up to 3.4 g, making up 680 million kg of waste per year.
- It is estimated that up to 1/3 of the American beach waste is cigarette butts.
- Every third cigarette is thrown away.
- Up to 70% of seabirds and 30% of sea turtles carry traces of chemicals from cigarettes.
- According to the World Health Organization (WHO), up to 30-40% of collected urban waste is cigarette butts.
- In San Francisco, 7 million dollars are spent every year for cleaning up the cigarette butts, it can go as high as 2.5 billion dollars for the whole United States.
The Acetate Filter is only a small part in HEETS and, according to Philip Morris, is just for the user's comfort (what HEETS actually consist of). Therefore, there is no doubt about the environmental burden of IQOS.
What we can do for a better environment
When switching from cigarettes to IQOS, we primarily think about our health, let's not forget the health of our environment. Due to the fact that the HEETS do not burn, it is much easier to keep them in your pocket or wherever you want, they don't smell, so there is no need to throw them right away.