Whether you’re a smoker or not, you’ve probably noticed the growing problem all over the globe that is the cigarette filter or butt.

Besides the obvious, there’s a lot that people don’t know about cigarette butts. Many cigarette butts are toxic, they release carcinogenic pollutants that can harm wildlife. Cellulose acetate breathed in from filters has been know to cause lung damage in some cases.

Cigarette butts are the most numerically frequent litter in the world; 4.5 Trillion cigarette butts are littered each year. Believe it or not, current filters are actually biodegradable, but they can take as much as 15-20 years to fully decompose. As you might imagine, these butts have been adding up quick. What can we do?