I fear it's actually seen as cool to toss the butt rather than treat it like the garbage/litter it really is.
Did you know:
The core of most cigarette filters -- the part that looks like white cotton, is actually a form of plastic called cellulose acetate. By itself, cellulose acetate is very slow to degrade in our environment. Depending on the conditions of the area the cigarette butt is discarded in, it can take 18 months to 10 years for a cigarette filter to decompose. But that isn't the worst of it. Used cigarette filters are full of toxins known as tar, and those chemicals leach into the ground and waterways, damaging living organisms that contact them. And, most filters are discarded with bits of tobacco still attached to them as well, further polluting our environment with nicotine.

Also:
Chemicals are added to cigarette paper to control the burn rate, and calcium carbonate is added as a whitener, in part to create an appealing ash as the cigarette burns.

Discarded cigarette butts pose a significant threat to our environment in terms of fire. Every year, forest fires ravage vast areas, killing off wildlife and vegetation that take years to return. Some of those fires are started by natural causes; drought, lightening and the like. But according to the National Fire Protection Agency, upwards of 90,000 fires every year in the United States alone are caused by cigarettes. Cigarette-induced fires claim hundreds of lives in the United States each year, and injure thousands more, not to mention the millions of dollars that go up in smoke in property damage.

Yeah, and if you pick up an old magazine it will have cigarettes ads telling you which brand your doctor most likely smokes. Even so far as to say they're good for your health. Let's head back into the cave, shall we? Dark ages here we come...

Hey, Mars, from your comments, that are no more than parroted propaganda, you seem to be one of the successfully brainwashed. You’re one of the gullible, easily-manipulated ones. If you’d bothered reading the references provided, you might be able to discern fact from inflammatory fiction. You’re right about one thing – we’ve regressed about a century to a moralizing zealotry that poses its own serious risks and dangers.

http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/tobaccousepregnancy/

Smoking makes it harder for a woman to get pregnant.
Women who smoke during pregnancy are more likely than other women to have a miscarriage.
Smoking can cause problems with the placentaExternal Web Site Icon—the source of the baby's food and oxygen during pregnancy. For example, the placenta can separate from the womb too early, causing bleeding, which is dangerous to the mother and baby.
Pregnant coupleSmoking during pregnancy can cause a baby to be born too early or to have low birth weight—making it more likely the baby will be sick and have to stay in the hospital longer. A few babies may even die.
Smoking during and after pregnancy is a risk factor of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), deaths among babies of no immediately obvious cause.
Babies born to women who smoke are more likely to have certain birth defects, like a cleft lip or cleft palate.
When you stop smoking—

Your baby will get more oxygen, even after just one day of not smoking.
There is less risk that your baby will be born too early.
There is a better chance that your baby will come home from the hospital with you.
You will be less likely to develop heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, chronic lung disease, and other smoke-related diseases.
You will be more likely to live to know your grandchildren.
You will have more energy and breathe more easily.

Darn fanatics!

1.
Antismoking concerning pregnancy predates the current wave, and inflammatory lies are the typical concoction of antismoking zealots. For example, early in the 1900’s it was some church groups (e.g., Methodist Episcopal Church’s Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Morals) that considered nicotine as a “killer of babies.” The “controversy” was picked up by the New York Times in two stories. In one story it was claimed that 40 babies from a New York maternity hospital “suffered from tobacco heart caused by the cigaret smoking of their mothers.” In the other it was claimed that “sixty percent of all babies born of cigaret-smoking mothers die before they reach the age of two, due primarily to nicotine poisoning.” (quoted in Oaks, 2001, p.53; Journal of the American Medical Association, 1929, p.123) The American Tobacco Trust was viewed by the church board as “conscienceless baby-killers” that by promoting cigarettes to women were directing a “lying murderous campaign.”
From “Rampant Antismoking Signifies Grave Danger”, p.306

The book also has a considerable section on the history of issues relating to smoking and pregnancy/early childhood, p.305-335. The book is available free to download at
http://www.rampant-antismoking.com

2.
The physician-led eugenicists (American & Nazi) also had their sights on pregnancy (reproductive hygiene). Women should not smoke, especially while pregnant, and the danger of “passive smoking” (passivrauchen) was a Nazi concoction particularly concerning pregnant women.

3.
Mars, your comment is no more than information that reflects a terrible abuse…. a torturing….. of statistical information to shove the antismoking agenda on everyone.

The following should provide you with an insight into antismoking zealotry where facts play very little or no part. The only goal of zealotry is to coerce (usually through terrorizing propaganda) the populace into conformity. The following is from the World Conferences on Smoking & Health which is a congregation of international antismoking zealots that has been the basis for the current antismoking “crusade”:

From the 4th World Conference on Smoking & Health, 1979 (see Godber Blueprint)

“Donovan's most interesting remarks related to smoking and pregnancy . He admitted that he couldn't explain how or why smoking harmed the fetus but suggested that, instead of worrying about such fine points, women be told that all unborn children of smoking women will be hurt . Donovan urged every participant to go back to their countries and publish estimates of the lethality of smoking and pregnancy based on the number of pregnant smokers . He urged this as an effective method to get women to stop smoking.” (p.14)

4. (cont'd)

“Julian Peto - brother of Richard Peto who collaborates with Sir Richard Doll - challenged Donovan on his smoking and pregnancy remarks . He said that Donovan couldn't establish how many pregnancies are harmed by smoking and that it is unscientific to estimate this simply estimating the number of pregnant smokers . He then showed a slide from his own study supporting his view that smoking has not been established as a cause of neonatal mortality . Donovan vigorously disagreed with Peto's view . Fletcher came to the rescue, noting there was yet room for disagreement in some areas over smoking and health.” (p.14, 15)

Serious, dangerous fanaticism/extremism was rife in America right up to WWII. The Temperance (religious leanings) and Eugenics (physicians, physicalists) Movements, both having dictatorial tendencies and a delusional emphasis on and obsession with physical health at the expense of all other dimensions of health, wreaked considerable damage in America. The EM was by far the most influential in America and eventually produced catastrophe in Nazi Germany with global consequences. The Temperance and Eugenics Movements shared the anti-tobacco sentiments in the quote above. While they attempted to change society with destructive consequences, Dowie chose to create his own “protected”, albeit highly dysfunctional, community.

Ah, there it is, Nazi Germany. Always a reference to it somewhere. Thanks!

Why this inane comment?

Of all the countries in the world, early last century there were only two countries that pursued an antismoking agenda – America and Nazi Germany. The connecting thread between the two was physician-led eugenics. Eugenics is anti-tobacco/alcohol. Eugenics didn’t originate with the Nazis. It was popularized in America. The Germans, including Hitler, were students of American eugenics. There was an intimate relationship between American and German eugenicists, particularly through California, and American and German industrialists that were supporters/funders of eugenics, e.g., Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie.

Mars, again, you’re just demonstrating that you really don’t understand too much at all. And yet you're most enthusiastic to offer your utterly uninformed opinion. You should be ashamed - at the very least.

The immediate health benefits of quitting smoking are substantial:

Heart rate and blood pressure, which are abnormally high while smoking, begin to return to normal.
Within a few hours, the level of carbon monoxide in the blood begins to decline. (Carbon monoxide reduces the blood’s ability to carry oxygen.)
Within a few weeks, people who quit smoking have improved circulation, produce less phlegm, and don’t cough or wheeze as often.
Within several months of quitting, people can expect substantial improvements in lung function (17).
In addition, people who quit smoking will have an improved sense of smell, and food will taste better.

Smoking is a leading cause of cancer and death from cancer. It causes cancers of the lung, esophagus, larynx, mouth, throat, kidney, bladder, pancreas, stomach, and cervix, as well as acute myeloid leukemia (1, 2).

Smoking also causes heart disease, stroke, aortic aneurysm (a balloon-like bulge in an artery in the chest), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (chronic bronchitis and emphysema), asthma, hip fractures, and cataracts. Smokers are at higher risk of developing pneumonia and other airway infections (1, 2).

A pregnant smoker is at higher risk of having her baby born too early and with an abnormally low birth weight. A woman who smokes during or after pregnancy increases her infant’s risk of death from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) (1, 2). Men who smoke are at greater risk of erectile dysfunction (5).

Cigarette smoking and exposure to tobacco smoke cause more than 440,000 premature deaths each year in the United States (1). Of these premature deaths, about 40 percent are from cancer, 35 percent are from heart disease and stroke, and 25 percent are from lung disease (6). Smoking is the leading cause of premature, preventable death in this country.

http://www.tricountycessation.org/tobaccofacts/Cigarette-Ingredients.html#list
here are over 4,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke and at least 69 of those chemicals are known to cause cancer.
The list of 599 additives approved by the US Government for use in the manufacture of cigarettes is something every smoker should see.
While these ingredients are approved as additives for foods, they were not tested by burning them, and it is the burning of many of these substances which changes their properties, often for the worse. Over 4000 chemical compounds are created by burning a cigarette – 69 of those chemicals are known to cause cancer. Carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen cyanides and ammonia are all present in cigarette smoke. Forty-three known carcinogens are in mainstream smoke, sidestream smoke or both. It's chilling to think about not only how smokers poison themselves, but what others are exposed to by breathing in the secondhand smoke. The next time you're missing your old buddy, the cigarette, take a good long look at this list and see them for what they are: a delivery system for toxic chemical and carcinogens.
http://www.tricountycessation.org/tobaccofacts/Cigarette-Ingredients.html#list

1.
Mars, you link to this “information” obviously believing that it actually means something. Well, actually it doesn’t. The first part of the page presents the Chapman Trick (see below). You’ll also find this trick in Surgeon General reports, on the CDC website, and a plethora of so-called “health promotion” websites. It’s inflammatory propaganda. It must be noted that organizations such as the Office of the SG and the CDC are not regulatory authorities. Concerning tobacco, they conduct themselves as activist/propaganda groups. Without a context of dosimetry – a concept utterly brutalized by antismoking zealotry - the second part of the linked page (a list of chemicals) is meaningless.

2.
We’ve all seen some variation of this “information” - What's in a cigarette:
Acetone (nail varnish remover), Ammonia (cleaning agent), Arsenic (ant poison in the USA), Benzene (petrol fumes), Cadmium (car battery fluid), DDT (insecticide), Ethanol (anti-freeze), Formaldehyde (embalming fluid), Hydrogen Cyanide (industrial pollutant), Lead (batteries, petrol fumes), Methanol (rocket fuel), Tar (road surface tar).

3.
This trick was suggested by Simon Chapman (an antismoker) at the Fifth World Conference on Smoking & Health (1983) while presenting his “manual of underhanded tricks & tactics”, i.e., how to do propaganda.

“A glance through any copy of the Smoking and Health Bulletin of the U S Department of Health and Human Services shows an entire indexed, section on ‘Tobacco Product Additives’ . Citations are included from patent office registrations of new chemical applications to tobacco processing and from the specialist chemical literature. Both these sources are virtually unintelligible, let alone normally accessible to the average person but are rich in potential for anyone willing to translate them into news items with popular interest . Polysyllabic chemical names should be checked through a reference book that lists common usages and toxicological data for chemicals . Look for usages that will connote revulsion or concern . For example, well known chemicals found in tobacco include cadmium (as in car batteries), ammonia (as in toilet cleaners), cyanides, formaldehyde and so on ……” (p.15)
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/gjq72f00

4.
The Chapman Trick is to associate trace levels of particular chemicals in tobacco smoke with industrial-type uses of the same chemicals that involve extraordinarily larger quantities of these chemicals and involving entirely different compounds. It is lying by omission by removing any coherent context. It violates the toxicological maxim that “the dose makes the toxicity”. It plays on the public’s ignorance and fear, knowing that people will typically read from right to left, e.g., there is ant poison in cigarettes, there is embalming fluid in cigarettes, there is road tar in cigarettes, etc. This is not true. The only purpose of this trick is to deceive. It is intended to promote outrage or revulsion in, particularly, gullible nonsmokers at whom it’s directed. This trick has been used, ad nauseam, since the mid-1980’s by medical organizations, antismoking groups, and governments because it is highly effective. It is highly effective because, like most antismoking propaganda, it is inflammatory and false: It outrages BECAUSE it is misleading. Its ONLY PURPOSE is to mislead, i.e., inflammatory propaganda. This trick has been instrumental in manufacturing tobacco smoke into a bio-weapon-like substance akin to, say, sarin gas.

5.
Just to be sure, the air we typically breathe has many of the same chemicals as in tobacco smoke, and more, and in higher concentrations.
http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/nata/mapconc.html

Again, these chemicals are typically at trace levels and are not problematic.
If you do a google search, you’ll find similar chemicals in raw food and from cooking, and in drinking water.
http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/index.cfm

So how much do you get paid to do this?

You're too funny.

I like your words. Prostituted. Brainwashing. Involuntary mental patients. Antismoking. Ideology. Tobacco-extermination. This is all so fun.

“This is all so fun.”

Mars, you’re just demonstrating how utterly clueless, gullible, and arrogant you are.
You should be doing much work correcting your propaganda-addled mind.

Oh yes, call me more names. It feels so good!!

Your comment made me smile. Thanks.