It’s All About the Butts - Empowering Smokers

A typical rest day for me is lying down on a batik sarong on the soft sandy beaches of Pulau Langkawi. I pick my spot under the natural shading courtesy of pokok ketapang. My set-up is made complete with some natural history and Sci-fi literature. When it gets too hot, I simply walk into the sea to cool off. Floating in the emerald waters of Langkawi while looking at landscapes as old as time, I have to concur with renowned Malaysian naturalist and my mentor, Irshad Mobarak, that heaven is indeed a place on Earth, and that place is Pulau Langkawi.

Trouble in Paradise and the Big Blue

However, not all is great in paradise. I often see litter on the beach. Litter like tissue paper, beverage tin cans, plastic bags, straws, and all kinds of food packaging decorate the sand. I pick up whatever litter I can and discard it when I get home. By far, the litter I pick up most often is the cigarette butt. I have collected up to 40 cigarette butts on a 20 metre walk on the backshore of Pantai Pasir Tengkorak, a quiet beach situated away from the busy tourist spots of Kuah town and Pantai Cenang. At Pantai Cenang, I counted the same number of cigarette butts but along just a 5 metre line of its backshore. Ridiculous! Even more frustrating is that these are just the butts that are sticking out from the sand. The gentle quartz sand is likely hiding more.

This is not a phenomenon unique to Pulau Langkawi. In fact, for the past decade, Ocean Conservancy has reported cigarette butts to be the most collected litter on their annual global coastal cleanups, with a record of 2,248,065 pieces in the year 2015. That is at least a million more than plastic bottles in the same year! Surfrider beach cleanups report that one in every five items collected is a cigarette butt.

While it might be tempting to blame beach users and tour operators, cigarette butts make their way to the coast and into the ocean via natural and man-made drainages. An improperly disposed butt from the plant boxes of KLCC Park gets a free ride to the ocean when it is washed away from the epic downpours of Kuala Lumpur. Rainwater carries the butt into drains that empty into Sungai Klang before ending up in the Straits of Malacca.That butt will then add to the cigarette butts in the ocean, currently estimated at around 4.5 trillion pieces.

More Than Just Paper

Just what is a butt? In the wake of strong research showing that smoking causes serious diseases, filtered cigarettes became dominant in the 1960s for the alleged increase of health safety the filter provides for the smoker. This filter is made of cellulose acetate, a non-flammable polymer created by adding a chemical to cellulose, the stuff that makes up the cell walls of plants and lets them grow tall. While the squishy white filter underneath the cigarette paper appears harmless, it is not readily biodegradable and takes anywhere between 18 months to 10 years to “disappear”. Because the filter is compact and rich in chemicals, the “disappearance” of a filter only happens in extreme conditions and usually means it is broken down into tiny pieces known as microplastics and microfibers. They enter ocean food webs which humans are part of as plankton mistakenly ingest them as food. That delicious ikan tiga rasa you had the other day is probably laced with these micro particles. Furthermore, these persist in the environment for millennia.

The “Cili Padi” of Litter - Small but Painful Punch

The minute spaces within the filter trap dangerous chemicals from burning cigarettes, such as nicotine, tar (no, not the hydrocarbon used to make roads, but “total aerosol residue” of toxic chemicals), carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, and do not forget the many different types of carcinogens. These chemicals can leach into water and have have devastating impacts on aquatic life of all sizes - from microorganisms such as bioluminescent marine bacterium and tiny crustaceans called water fleas, to medium-sized fish in both freshwater and the sea. Cigarette butt litter can even collapse aquatic food webs in severe cases when microorganisms are wiped out due to the ingestion of “empty calories” of cigarette butt micro particles. Basically, no microorganisms, no food for the small fish; no small fish, no food for the big fish; no big fish, no seafood.

A cigarette butt, too, is the perfect size to act as a choking hazard to hungry wildlife that mistake it for food.

Changing Mindsets and Empowering Smokers

Public service announcements to quit smoking bombard smokers in Malaysia on a daily basis. All smokers hear and read about smoking is in negative light. This repressive narrative must switch to an empowering narrative encouraging smokers to stop flicking cigarette butts into places other than the bin if we are to reduce the environmental impact of smoking.

Smokers who simply refrain from flicking their butts can do so much for the environment. It can be tough to break the flicking habit, but here are some tips for binning them butts, after you completely stub them out, of course:

• Only smoke in designated areas - Smoking areas generally have proper bins with an ashtray for all your stubbing needs. Just make sure to use them and not the plant boxes. The soil and plants do not need your cigarette butts.
• Request an ashtray - Some establishments allow smoking on/in their premises. If there is no ashtray close by, request one from the staff members.
• Bring your own ashtray - My friend’s stylish portable ashtray intrigued me when I first saw it about three years ago. It is a metal box with a button that engages a cigarette holder when pressed. Smoke away and flick your ashes and butts into the metal box, then store it in your pocket or purse until you find a bin to discard the refuse.
• Upcycle suitable packaging into a portable ashtray - Small metal containers for mints and glass shakers for your dried herbs and spices are great alternatives to somewhat costly portable ashtrays.
• Encourage your fellow smokers to be responsible - Spread the word that smokers can make a difference for the betterment of the environment. Do it with passion and joy to effectively touch people on an intrinsic level.

The choice to smoke is ours, but smokers should make the choice to bin their butts. Flicking cigarette butts everywhere but the bin has profound effects on the environment. But there is still time to save the environment when smokers unite and take action!

Beyond Stopping Cigarette Butt Littering

Smokers can further help the environment by being informed and responsible consumers. Smokers can write to their favourite brands to pressure tobacco companies to be environmentally conscious. More tobacco plantations must employ sustainable practices to reduce excessive use of water and to stop the clearing of forests. How about getting tobacco companies to rethink the packaging of tobacco products? Perhaps organic-based “plastics” can substitute the current plastic wrapper enveloping brand new cigarette cartons. It is also high-time for true biodegradable filters (like “greenbutts”) to be mainstream so cigarette butts do not occupy our landfills and our natural surroundings for eons to come. All of these require the voice of the 22.8% of the Malaysian population who are smokers. Take action and make change!


I originally wrote this article for a class that was meant to be published as a Star2 article but received no bites from the editor. I blame it on the high of the general elections in 2018 but maybe my composition just sucks. Therefore, I have decided to share it on my blog. Maybe some of you readers may benefit from this.