Cigarette Butt Litter and Smoking Prevalence (CDC)
In this image, we wanted to take a look at the relationship between where our community finds Cigarette Butt Litter and the Crude Prevalence of Smoking (CDC) within the United States. Using traditional statistical techniques, we could simply look at how these values are correlated (R2). However, given the nature of our crowd-sourced Litter Data, we may not have equal coverage in every county of the US, meaning the R2 score may not be very representative of the places where litter was actually observed.
Alas, there are still many useful ways to explore the Litter Data collected by our community! One such way involves bi-variate mapping:
In this first map, we are plotting both Cigarette Butt Litter per Capita and the proportion of smokers within that county's population. The areas on the map that are purple, tell us that there are potentially a lot of smokers producing a lot of Cigarette Butt Litter in that country.
Cigarette Butt Litter Per Capita and Smoking Prevalence (CDC) by Oakland CTs
In this second map, let's take a deeper look at Oakland, California where we have relatively higher coverage. We can see that the purple census tracts, indicating both a high amount of Cigarette Butt Litter per Capita and a high proportion of smokers, are located downtown and around the airport.
What else would you do with this information? We're curious to hear your thoughts as well!
Data Sources:
Executive Director | Environmental Issue Expertise, Dynamic Thought Leader
2 年Thank you Jeff Kirschner! Once again, our bill to ban the butts was culled of cigarettes and we were told "it is just an education problem" that people littered their butts. We need more data to pass bills to end the plague of plastic pollution and litter caused by these products. Thank you for gathering the proof!
Circular and Low Carbon Solutions | LyondellBasell.
2 年It makes sense that high population areas would have high incidences smoking and litter. I’d like to see major city to city comparisons to see if there is uniformity, or if litter laws or increased environmental awareness play any role.
Human Resources Generalist at New York City
2 年Such great information, I’d like to find ways to make this more shareable on other platforms also
Product Development & Innovation Director, EIMEA, Hygiene & Healthcare at Berry Global Inc.
2 年Have you ever tried to use it to prevent and decrease the amount of cigarette butt litter? I guess this may help for instance to prioritize investments for public astray waste bins.