“A butt or a Puff never disappears”: a campaign points to the pollution of cigarettes

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AFP/Relaxnews (News Agency)

Officially classified as “hazardous waste” and “ecotoxic” by the National Institute for the Industrial Environment and Risks (INERIS), cigarettes have long been decried for their impact on health, but also on the environment. Every year in the world, 4,500 billion cigarette butts are thrown into the environment, recalls the associations ACT-Alliance against tobacco and Surfrider Foundation who are launching a campaign aimed at 15-24 year olds to raise awareness of the reality behind tobacco industry waste. “To date, there is no possibility of recycling this waste without risk to the environment or public health.“, point out the associations.

But electronic cigarettes, and especially disposable ones like the famous Puff, are also problematic for the planet. “Composed of plastic, lithium batteries and heavy metals, these products are neither depolluting nor recyclable“, points out the campaign. The associations also draw attention to the design of disposable e-cigarettes whose molding carried out directly in the plastic would make it impossible to extract the batteries and therefore prevent their recycling.Nevertheless, 37% of smokers mistakenly believe that disposable electronic cigarettes are recyclable“, according to a survey carried out by the company BVA for the ACT-Alliance against tobacco and published in May 2022.

This same survey shows that even if the impact of cigarettes on the planet has been increasingly highlighted in recent years, it still remains unknown. Among the French people questioned, 24% think for example (wrongly) that cigarette butts are recyclable. The components of conventional cigarettes are also poorly known: only 26% of French people know that cigarette filters are made of plastic, while 46% of respondents believe that these objects are filled with wadding or cotton.