Tobacco industry accountability for marine pollution
Sy DK. Tobacco industry accountability for marine pollution: country and global estimates Tobacco Control Published Online First: 28 November 2023. doi: 10.1136/tc-2022-057795
“We estimate that US$25.7 billion is lost annually (waste management and marine ecosystem service losses) due to cigarette plastic sources. We estimate US$186 billion in such losses over a 10-year period, adjusted for inflation. Countries are making progress in developing plastics policies, particularly banning single-use ones, but the costs of tobacco’s plastic pollution are overlooked.
Efforts to reduce plastic pollution should address cigarette filters as toxic, widespread and preventable sources of marine pollution. Countries may develop specific estimates of waste management and ecosystem costs in order to assign tobacco industry accountability for this pollution. These results indicate minimum estimates for a majority of countries.”
Author Comment: ”Shifting costs of tobacco product waste upstream to tobacco companies is crucial but is only a stopgap measure in terms of the tobacco end game, which is to accomplish a tobacco-free future. According to many advocates, the better solution is to ban the sale of plastic cigarette filters as part of the global effort to eliminate single-use plastics.” Note: Banning plastic cigarette filters would be an important step towards the tobacco end game.
https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2023/11/07/tc-2022-057795
Stephen Hamann
