UK government plans to tax tobacco industry for waste

Despite having one of the lowest smoking rates in Europe, the UK spends £40m (€47m) each year cleaning up cigarette butts and other tobacco-related litter.

The British government decided to retaliate on March 30, 2021[1] by announcing that it wants to tax tobacco manufacturers in the name of extended producer responsibility (EPR), a legislation that requires all manufacturers to manage the waste resulting from their products. In the case of tobacco, this extended industrial responsibility is already provided for cigarette packaging; it will now be extended to the thousands of tons of cigarette butts that smoking generates each year.

Tobacco-related litter is the most common form of litter (68%) in the country and has a direct impact on the environment through air, river and ocean pollution. Additionally, cigarette butts are considered single-use items, which the UK government has already taken significant action to ban. In its fight against plastic pollution, the UK government has already banned microbeads in beauty products, plastic straws and stirrers and cotton buds. The single-use plastic bag charge will be extended to all retailers and increased to 10p from April 2021, and a plastic packaging charge will be introduced from April 2022 for products that do not contain at least 30% recycled content.

Distrust of the industry

Although it initially considered self-regulation of waste by tobacco multinationals, the British Liberal Conservative government ultimately preferred the option of a direct tax, equivalent to the £40 million spent on cigarette butt management alone. It considered that it was more prudent to create a tax than to rely on the sense of responsibility of these companies. The English government complied with the provisions of Article 5.3 of the FCTC which provides that there shall be no non-binding or non-enforceable agreements entered into with the tobacco industry.

The other major measure envisaged by the government to limit this waste is to encourage the cessation of all tobacco consumption and to continue to reduce the prevalence of tobacco use in the country, in order to become a tobacco-free country by 2030.

The REP framework alone is insufficient to combat tobacco product waste

The need for the tobacco industry to bear the environmental costs of its products is undeniable, and the development of new recreational tobacco and nicotine products tends to make the situation worse. Indeed, these new products such as electronic cigarettes or heated tobacco further increase electronic waste. And it is difficult to imagine creating an electronic cigarette without a battery, toxic liquid and metals and plastics.[2]In this regard, the industry provides very little information and options on the recycling of these new products.[3].

Beyond the principle, there is the question of the method of application. The EPR provides a very useful framework for certain industries and products, such as pharmaceutical take-back programmes. However, this mechanism does not seem fully appropriate for waste generated by the tobacco industry. One of the principles of the EPR is indeed the identification of the products to be covered. This process generally involves analysing the usefulness of the product. In this case, the continued production of tobacco products does not provide any social benefit.

The aim of the REP is also to encourage companies to offer tobacco products that are less harmful to the environment. With more than 11 billion cigarettes consumed every day[4], any new biodegradable eco-filter will always require massive inputs of materials and energy for its production. In addition, the products consumed still contain thousands of toxic products by nature. And the new products are making this situation worse. In addition, some waste from tobacco products refers to specific regulations relating to hazardous waste.[5]-[6].

Finally, one of the major risks facing public authorities is that by involving tobacco manufacturers to a greater or lesser extent, the latter will rush into these provisions in order to communicate and whitewash their image. This was the case in the United Kingdom with the Love where you live campaign, co-founded by Imperial Tobacco and supervised by the organization Keep Britain Tidy[7]. The British government's decision to tax tobacco manufacturers is probably not unrelated to this failure.

Keywords: tobacco industry – cigarette butts – waste – environment – 2030©Tobacco Free Generation

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[1] Communicated, Government explores next steps to clean up tobacco litter in England, UK government website, March 30, 2021, accessed April 1, 2021[2] Hendlin, Yogi Hale. “Alert: Public Health Implications of Electronic Cigarette Waste.” American journal of public health flight. 108.11 (2018): 1489-1490. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2018.304699[3] Staff attorneys Kyra Hill and Hudson Kingston, To End the Tobacco Industry's Pollution, Put an End to the Tobacco Industry, Public Health Law Center, June 30, 2020, accessed April 6, 2021[4] Cigarettes in figures, France TV info, October 11, 2015, consulted on 1^er April 2021[5] Disposing of E-cigarette waste, Public Health Law Center, December 2019, accessed April 6, 2021[6] Tips for Safe Disposal of E-Cigarettes and E-Liquid Waste, US Food and Drug Administration, September 23, 2020, accessed April 6, 2021[7] Tobacco Tactics, CSR: Imperial and Love Where You Live, last updated April 27, 2020, accessed April 1, 2021National Committee Against Smoking |