Study: cigarette butts worse for environment than plastic straws

Plastic straws get a lot of bad press these days and communities across the U.S. are now adopting rules to ban their use altogether but new research suggests cigarette butts are actually the worse things we as humans leave behind.

A study on the long term environmental impact of cigarette butts was recently published in the journal Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety.

Researchers with the University of Cambridge determined that cigarette butts can affect the germination success and growth of some plants.  They closely examined the affect of cigarette butts on clover and grass.

Roots of clovers were particularly affected by cigarette butts which can cause concentrations of Chorophyll-a in clover.  The filters can also affect root biomass and root-to-shoot ratios of white clover.