Toxic Environmental Waste Caused by Cigarette Butts and Filters

Cigarette butts are the number one collected item of trash each year on international beach cleanups. These are almost entirely made up of cellulose acetate (plastic) filters which are not biodegradable. These filters also contain toxic hazardous waste products produced by smoking, and the residual tobacco on a butt contains partially combusted or raw tobacco that is hazardous. The shear volume of this waste product (4.5 trillion worldwide deposited each year into the environment) calls for new approaches to reduce the environmental burden of hazardous cigarette waste. Options include: collecting fees to be used for cleanup of butt waste, increasing taxes on filtered cigarettes, developing biodegradable filters, increasing regulations on and fines for discarding butts, increasing public awareness about toxic hazardous cigarette waste, bringing class action suits against the industry to recover damages to the environment for uncontrolled, non-point-source cigarette butt waste, and banning the sales and production of non-biodegradable cigarette filters at the state level. The session will review tobacco industry documents on the evidence regarding smokers attitudes towards littering and the industry attempts to develop biodegradable filters; report on marine and freshwater toxicity studies on cigarette waste in the environment; review the regulatory and litigation options for the state regarding cigarette butt waste, and present a new advocacy project to address the environmental problem of toxic cigarette butt waste.