1 Opportunities to "drive action" on cigarette filters
2 International developments.
Comment on draft federal regulations which ban certain single-use plastics (but not cigarette filters)
On Christmas Day (really!) Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) published draft regulations ("Single-Use Plastics Prohibition Regulations") in the Canada Gazette, Part I. These regulations would ban the manufacture or sale of single-use plastic checkout bags, cutlery, stir sticks, straws and some foodservice ware. Last May, plastics were added to the official list of toxic substances in Canada's Environmental Protection Act.
Despite the toxicity of cigarette and e-cigarette waste, and despite calls for cigarette filters to be included in the ban, the federal government has not yet made any detailed plans to manage post consumer waste from tobacco industry products.
The consultation on draft regulations is an opportunity to encourage this department to give priority to cigarette waste and to ensure that this is done in ways that support reductions in tobacco use.
Health authorities, organizations and individuals can participate in this consultation to encourage the federal government to develop a plan to manage tobacco and e-cigarette waste which contributes to achieving environmental and public health goals. The consultation closes on March 5, 2022. Information on how to submit comments is available on ECCC's web-site.
Engage in the UNEP-WHO/FCTC social media campaign.
In late January, the UN agencies responsible for tobacco regulation (World Health Organization - Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) and the environment (United Nations Environmental Program) launched a partnership to "drive action" on the human and environmental harms caused by plastics in cigarette filters. One of the aims of this campaign is to "encourage citizens to advocate" for measures like the EU directive requiring all filtered cigarette packages to have a warning label.
Observe World No Tobacco Day with this year's theme "Tobacco: Threat to our environment"
Since the mid 1980s, the World Health Organization has encouraged governments to observe May 31st as World No Tobacco Day. The theme set for this year by WHO is "Tobacco: Threat to our environment." WHO hopes this will accelerate action: "The campaign calls on governments and policy makers to step up legislation, including implementing and strengthening existing schemes to make producers responsible for the environmental and economic costs of tobacco product waste."
2 International developments.
Mandatory labelling (European Union). Since July 2021, EU Directive 2019/904 has required packages of filtered cigarettes to be labelled with an alert regarding the plastic content (and from July 2022 the notice must be printed on the package). EU member states are also required to ensure that producers pay for awareness-raising, litter clean-up, dadta gathering and reporting and waste collection.
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| Packages of filtered cigarettes sold in the EU must now display this caution sign. |
Expanded Producer Responsibility (France). France plans to reduce the number of discarded cigarette butts in the environment by 40 percent within six years. In 2020 it passed an anti-waste (Antigaspillage) law which required industries to assume responsibility for managing such waste and in 2021 an industry-managed organization, ALCOME, was established by government authority to direct these activities, and to contribute 80 million euro in funding.
Filter ban (California). Legislative proposals have been introduced (but not yet passed) to ban filtered cigarettes and single-use e-cigarettes. The most recent of these, Assembly Bill 1690, was presented in January 2022.
Waste charge (San Francisco and Korea). For over a decade, San Francisco has collected a cigarette litter abatement fee from retailers. They now collect $1.05 per package. Korea. The Republic of Korea has imposed a waste charge on a package of 20 cigarettes at 24.4 won (about $0.03). A similar tax is also applied to e-cigarette cartridges or heat-not-burn sticks in 2015.
Deposit-return. Proposals for a deposit-return system for cigarette filters - similar to that required for pop-bottles - have been made by health and environmental groups in Germany, Canada, considered by some U.S. State legislatures, and endorsed by some Canadian municipalities.
Evidence gathering (United Kingdom). In November 2021, the U.K. Department for Environmental and Rural Affairs launched a public process to gather evidence on how to manage "problematic plastic items" including with a focus on wet wipes, tobacco filters and sachets. The call for evidence closed on February 12, 2022.
3 Risks and Vulnerabilities
"Principle 1: There is a fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between the tobacco industry’s interests and public health policy interests." Canada and 180 other countries have adopted this principle to guide their relationships with the tobacco industry and to protect public health measures from industry interference.
Permitting tobacco companies to lead the management of tobacco waste, as France is doing, is one way to apply Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), but it also creates opportunities for the companies to use these activities in ways which undermine public health measures.
Tobacco and e-cigarette companies will use their influence to defeat measures that encourage smokers to quit or discourage young people from starting (filter bans, waste fees, smoking prohibitions on beaches or other environmentally-sensitive areas). Their intention is to frame the issue as one of "smokers' responsibilities" and not "commercial waste". They will promote measures which renormalize smoking (like plentiful public ashtrays) or which externalize the costs of waste management (community clean-ups). They will create economic allies by creating or funding environmental groups, as they did in previous decades with sports and arts associations.
These efforts are already underway in Canada. With some fanfare, the Canadian branch of Philip Morris, for example, brands its waste initiatives under the #UNSMOKE harm reduction banner and funds community groups to recruit volunteers to clean up its post-consumer waste. Last year the company donated $75,000 to 19 community groups to clean up tobacco and other waste, leveraging 10 million volunteer hours. 754,000 cigarette butts were collected -- less than the number Vancouver city estimates are dropped there in a single day. It also partners with Terracycle to incentivize cigarette clean-ups as fundraisers for community groups.
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| Philip Morris/RBH #UNSMOKE clean-up of downtown Toronto, 2019. |
Governments and communities can protect themselves from these vulnerabilities by:
- ensuring transparency in any discussions between tobacco companies and governments on all issues.
- rejecting measures which externalize the costs of tobacco waste management
- countering tobacco industry public relations activities
- protecting public measures from tobacco industry influence by discouraging partnerships with tobacco companies (including withholding public funding from groups which partner with tobacco companies).
Selected Resources
Briefing notes
Selected research articles
https://cm.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/s/2021/synthesis-post-consumer-waste.pdf
