The ban on filtered cigarettes and cigars aims to reduce plastic pollution and curb smoking rates.
RTās Three Key Takeaways:
- Ban Targets Plastic Pollution: Santa Cruz Countyās ban on filtered cigarettes and cigars aims to address cigarette filters, a leading source of plastic pollution worldwide.
- Health and Environmental Concerns: Experts highlight that cigarette filters add microplastics and hazardous chemicals to the environment without offering any health benefits to smokers.
- Broader Movement Against Filters: The Santa Cruz ban aligns with global efforts, including potential international treaty discussions, to reduce or eliminate cigarette filters.
The board of supervisors of Santa Cruz County, Calif, finalized its approval of a ban on the sale of filtered cigarettes and cigars. The sales ban will apply to all unincorporated areas of the county and requires that two of the four incorporated cities in the county pass similar ordinances before coming into effect.
Cigarette filters are the world’s leading source of trash and the leading source of plastic pollution. Globally, approximately 4.5 trillion used filtersāor buttsāare discarded into the environment every year. Filters are non-biodegradable and cannot be feasibly collected or recycled.
“There are no downstream solutions to the plague of cigarette filters,” says Laurent Huber, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health, in a release. “The only practical choice is to eliminate them from the market.”
“In addition to adding microplastics to the environment, hazardous chemicals from tobacco smoke that are trapped in the filters leach into water and soil,” says Georg E. Matt, PhD, co-director of the Center for Tobacco and the Environment at San Diego State University, in a release. “Cigarette filters have no health benefits to smokers; they just make it easier to get people addicted and keep them addicted.”
Addition of Filters in the ā50s
Filters were added to cigarettes by the tobacco industry in the 1950s in response to growing health concerns about smoking. However, filters do nothing to mitigate the harms of smoking and may make things worse, according to a release from Action on Smoking and Health.
“Filters are purely a marketing tool for the tobacco industry,” Huber says in a release. “They were designed to keep people from quitting smoking.”
Banning Filters
While Santa Cruz County is the first to pass such a law, there is movement in this direction across the globe. Environmental ministries in Belgium and the Netherlands have recommended banning filters, and over the past several years bills have been introduced in several US states.
Current negotiations at the United Nations on a treaty to end plastic pollution include text banning filters worldwide.
More than 98% of cigarettes are filtered, making smoking less harsh and keeping bits of tobacco out of the mouth. Public health officials hope that banning filters will motivate adults to quit smoking and greatly reduce youth uptake.
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