LONDON: The presence of cigarette butts in soil reduced the germination success and shoot length of clover by 27 percent and 28 percent respectively, the study suggests. According to the study, for grass, germination success reduced by 10% and shoot length by 13%.
An estimated 4.5 trillion butts are littered globally each year making them the planet’s most pervasive form of plastic pollution, the study said.
Most cigarette butts contain a filter made of cellulose acetate fibre, a type of a bioplastic.
But researchers found filters from un-smoked cigarettes had almost the same effect on plant growth as used filters, indicating that the damage to plants is caused by the filter itself, even without the additional toxins released from the burning of the tobacco.
As part of the research – published in the journal Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety – academics sampled locations around the city of Cambridge and found areas with as many as 128 discarded cigarette butts per sq metre.
Control experiments were carried out and contained pieces of wood of identical shape and size as the cigarette butts.
(with inputs from BBC)
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