Worldwide, smokers toss over 4.5 trillion cigarette butts each year, many of which end up in our waterways. The tobacco and paper components decompose readily but the plastic cellulose filters which contain thousands of chemicals filtered from the tobacco do not. These filters, once in the water, release the concentrated chemicals they were designed to trap into our water system and additionally are mistaken for food by birds and marine life which become poisoned and die after eating them.