Tobacco firms ‘must help pay for cigarette butt clean-up’

TOBACCO companies should pay towards the cost of clearing up cigarette butts, campaigners say.

The butts are the most common litter item in the UK. Although £1billion is spent clearing up rubbish in England every year, tobacco firms last year contributed only £70,000 to litter prevention and nothing to cleaning up.

This is despite the four tobacco manufacturers whose products are sold in the UK – Imperial, JTI, Philip Morris and British American Tobacco – making than £39billion in profits in 2016. Their contribution to the UK Treasury in Corporation Tax in the same year was £40million.

Allison Ogden-Newton of Keep Britain Tidy, said: ‘Cigarette litter blights every street, park and beach in this country, it is costly to clean up and toxic for the environment. It’s time for manufacturers to get serious about the litter their products generate. They have the resources to raise awareness.

‘Campaigns that cut through to smokers, funded by the industry, are needed now because so many still think butts are harmless.’