A single-use plastics ban? Why we must include the cigarette butt

Cigarette butts are by far Canada’s leading form of litter.

Worldwide, trillions are littered annually.

Beyond being unsightly, non-biodegradable and toxic to marine and terrestrial life, they are costly to clean up and a leading cause of both structure and forest fires.

Although increasingly getting the attention they deserve as an environmental concern, little thought has been given to them in the context of Canada’s recently proposed single-use plastics ban. So what exactly is a cigarette butt? Doesn’t the filter make smoking safer? The cigarette filter is made up of mostly cellulose acetate — a type of plastic also found in eyeglass frames, playing cards and film.

Additionally, the butt also carries hundreds of other toxic chemicals, including heavy metals, which then leach out into the environment.

According to historian Allen Brandt’s “The Cigarette Century,” while the filter was initially introduced in the 1950s in response to growing (although industry denied) health concerns, it soon became clear they do not make smoking any less dangerous (and may actually contribute to its death toll by making smoking less irritating, thus easing initiation and increasing amounts smoked).

The filters quickly became a marketing tool for the industry; pH was intentionally manipulated to ensure they darkened upon smoking, providing the reassuring impression of filtration.

Leaving aside numbers, butts also differ from other litter in a couple of very pernicious ways.

All other forms of plastic waste, from straws to plastic bags, initially serve an undeniably positive purpose for their user.

In contrast, the cigarette butt starts off as part of the only product available today that, when used exactly as intended, ultimately causes the premature death of over half its users — more than seven million annually, the world’s (and still Canada’s) leading cause of preventable death.

Furthermore, people usually at least attempt to dispose of other forms of plastic waste in environmentally friendly manners. Despite decades of unsuccessful educational campaigns, at least half of all butts are littered.

This means that unlike other forms of plastic waste, which generally enter the environment en masse in a controlled, albeit imperfect, fashion, such as in landfills, trillions of toxic cigarette butts enter the environment individually.

This results in much more widespread damage.

Therefore, implementing a single-use plastics ban without including cigarette filters would be at best a half-measure, and would represent a major lost opportunity to eliminate one of our greatest environmental scourges.

Are there other options for dealing with cigarette waste? Yes, but none nearly as good.

At Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, we support methods that reduce litter without increasing tobacco’s visibility.

Lastly, several governing agencies have given lip-service to the idea of including the tobacco industry under extended producer responsibilities.

Beyond providing an image win to the companies, this would really only provide funding for attempts at difficult after-thefact cleanup.

The ineffectiveness of such with regard to single-use plastics is of course the raison d’être for proposing the ban in the first place.

Proposing a ban on cigarette filters is not new.

However, it could only be successfully undertaken by a large jurisdiction.

Our federal government’s proposal for a sweeping single-use plastics ban gives us this special opportunity.

On behalf of Physicians for a SmokeFree Canada, I call on not only our government but on our many health and environmental groups to make sure the king of single-use plastics does not escape the reckoning that appears to be coming for his henchmen.