Switzerland: Cigarette butt campaign exploited by the tobacco industry

In Switzerland, the "Stop Smoking Butts" (Stopp dem Stummel) campaign invites smokers to pose for photos to demonstrate their "good deed" and encourage their peers to throw their cigarettes in ashtrays rather than on the street. Presented as a civic and environmental initiative, this initiative is supported by tobacco industry players and is part of a communication strategy that promotes "responsible" smoking without questioning the production of plastic filters or tobacco consumption itself.

An attractive initiative, but exploited by the tobacco industry

The "Stop cigarette butts" (in German: "Stop the butts") campaign is being rolled out in public spaces in several Swiss cantons through posters posted in particular on public transport, at bus stops and in the streets of the cantons concerned. It invites smokers to become "role models": the visuals present people with their faces or names associated with the phrase "We dispose of our cigarette butts correctly", with the aim of encouraging the practice by setting an example.[1].

Furthermore, the campaign calls for citizen participation, inviting smokers to take photos of themselves in a "responsible" gesture: the objective is to create a network of "virtuous" photos disseminated in public spaces, reinforcing the image of a "clean" smoker. This process, which combines social advertising and participatory marketing, increases the visibility of the campaign and facilitates the appropriation of the messages by the public.

On some billboards, smokers are presented in a positive light: smiling, visibly "clean" and respectful of the environment, without staging the act of smoking itself (no cigarette is visible while remaining fully suggested). This approach has been criticized as a form of indirect promotion: some observers believe that the positive image of the smoker, accompanied by a message of responsibility, contributes to trivializing their presence in the public space rather than questioning it. In doing so, such an approach is entirely in line with a process of normalizing the consumption of these products, even though this "denormalization" is the issue of many of the anti-smoking measures demonstrated as effective in reducing smoking prevalence.

The campaign's costs are being funded entirely by private partners, including major tobacco manufacturers. Although the precise proportions of participation are not made public, the site The campaign's official website mentions that Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, and Japan Tobacco International collaborated on it. The consulting firm Fehr Advice, responsible for implementation, indicates that the current phase constitutes a "controlled field experiment."

In this context, the campaign can be analyzed as a greenwashing campaign for the tobacco industry—not through direct advertising of its products, but through an image strategy designed to strengthen its reputation. By promoting the "good actions" of smokers and by generating collective support for a "citizen" project, it helps to reconfigure the image of tobacco in the public space, while avoiding addressing the health dimension, reducing consumption, or modifying products as the first consideration, all of which directly implicate its responsibility for health and environmental damage.

An inadequate approach to public health and environmental protection

Emphasizing the smoker's sole responsibility for cigarette butt management has several limitations. First, it obscures the decisive role of tobacco manufacturers in the design and marketing of products that generate toxic and persistent plastic waste. Cigarette filters, which represent one of the most collected types of waste in public spaces, are made of cellulose acetate, a non-biodegradable plastic fiber that can take more than a decade to decompose. By focusing the debate on consumer behavior, this approach avoids questioning the very existence of these filters, whose health protection for smokers has never been demonstrated.

Second, this strategy tends to obscure structural solutions that could have a real impact on reducing tobacco-related pollution. Regulatory policies, such as filter bans, strict enforcement of the polluter-pays principle, or the establishment of smoke-free spaces, coupled with incentives and support for quitting smoking, are the most effective levers for reducing waste production. Individual-centered campaigns, on the other hand, have shown limited or even marginal impact in other contexts with respect to the environmental problem at hand and often serve as an excuse to delay the implementation of more restrictive measures.

The French example also fully illustrates these limitations. Since 2021, the eco-organization Alcome, funded by tobacco manufacturers, has been tasked with implementing an extended producer responsibility scheme for cigarette filters. While this system contributes to funding urban cleanup and deploys awareness campaigns, it does nothing to change the design of the products or the dependency they foster. These actions benefit the industry's image more than public health, reinforcing the idea that managing the problem depends solely on individual behavior.

Finally, this focus on smoker accountability can have counterproductive effects on health. By equating the fight against cigarette butts with a civic or ecological gesture, it tends to normalize the presence of tobacco in public spaces, even though it remains a product responsible for more than eight million premature deaths each year worldwide. Filter pollution cannot be considered in isolation from the overall impact of tobacco on health and the environment. By reducing the problem to a matter of urban cleanliness, these campaigns minimize the seriousness of the health and environmental issue and divert attention from the most effective tobacco control policies.

The Swiss context: weak regulation linked to a powerful tobacco lobby

Switzerland occupies a unique position in Europe when it comes to tobacco control. While the country has signed the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), it has never ratified it. This situation exempts it from implementing the obligations set out in the treaty, particularly Article 5.3, under which states have committed to protecting their public policies from tobacco industry interference. The absence of this safeguard contributes to allowing the industry to do its thing and blocking any truly protective regulatory developments.

The Swiss legislative framework is thus distinguished by its still broad tolerance for advertising and sponsorship. While most European countries have restricted or even completely banned tobacco promotion for several years, Switzerland still allows display advertising and communication in the written press. These communication spaces represent opportunities for manufacturers to maintain high visibility for their brands and to influence not only public decision-makers but also public opinion itself.

This situation is accentuated by the presence on Swiss territory of headquarters and research centers belonging to several tobacco multinationals, including Philip Morris International and Japan Tobacco International. Institutional and economic proximity fosters regular interaction between the industry and the authorities, strengthening the sector's influence in public debates. Various international reports have highlighted Switzerland's "permeability" to industry interests, placing the country behind its European neighbors in terms of protecting health policies.

In this context, campaigns like "Stop cigarette butts" find particularly fertile ground. They allow the tobacco industry to associate itself with positive messages and to highlight its supposed role in the fight against pollution, without addressing the structural dimensions linked to tobacco consumption and production. Such a practice is not new. Switzerland distinguished itself a few years ago with tobacco industry-initiated smoking prevention campaigns that were evaluated as counterproductive.

©Generation Without Tobacco

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[1] Michelle Isler, Hauptsache keine Zigarettenstummel?, Bajour, published September 4, 2025, accessed September 26, 2025