Mégothon: a citizen mobilization exploited by the tobacco industry

Every year, as World No Tobacco Day approaches, the Mégothon mobilizes thousands of volunteers to collect cigarette butts in public spaces. Through this citizen initiative, relayed on social media and supported by several environmental associations, the stated objective is to raise awareness of the effects of tobacco pollution on the environment.

Since its first edition in 2023, the event has claimed records for participation and volume of waste collected, notably thanks to highly followed public figures. The 2023 edition benefited from extensive online visibility thanks to the participation of the influencer Inoxtag, a very popular personality among young audiences. In 2025, the popular science account Epicurieux, followed by nearly a million subscribers on Instagram, relayed the event via several publications.

A seemingly virtuous cigarette butt collection operation

The Mégothon is a national cigarette butt collection initiative launched in 2023 by a group of non-profit organizations committed to addressing tobacco-related environmental pollution. Presented as a unifying initiative, this campaign aims to mobilize citizens, businesses, schools, and communities around a simple goal: to collect as many cigarette butts as possible in public spaces, while raising awareness of the harmful effects of this waste on the environment.

The 2025 edition of the Mégothon takes place from May 21st to 27th, with a highlight on Saturday, May 24th. Collection events are being organized throughout France, accessible via an interactive map hosted on the Trash Spotter platform. In parallel, communication tools are being offered to participants to organize their own collection: customizable posters, practical guides, standard press releases, and awareness-raising materials. The goal is to provide national visibility to a local initiative, carried out by volunteers and local organizations.

Among the events already listed, collections are planned in Pontchâteau, Caen, Trévoux, Ajaccio, and Paris, organized by associations such as Horizons, EcoTerre Orvault, and Corsica Clean Nature. National coordination is provided by a group of organizations including Cap Zéro Mégot, World Cleanup Day-France, Wings of the Ocean, CleanWalker, Team River Clean, and Ludovic Objectif Planète Propre. The logistics and technical platform is managed by Trash Spotter, a specialist in digital citizen collection systems.

Cigarette butts, toxic waste that is difficult to recycle 

Cigarette butts are hazardous, toxic, and persistent waste, and today represent one of the primary types of plastic waste found in the environment, particularly in aquatic environments. Each butt contains thousands of chemical substances, several of which are classified as toxic to marine organisms. Contrary to popular belief, recycling this waste is extremely complex, costly, and not viable on a large scale, which severely limits the effectiveness of the recovery systems put forward by some industrial players. Their management cannot therefore be limited to technical post-consumer treatment solutions, but requires source reduction measures, starting with the planned ban on filters as part of international policies to combat single-use plastics.[1].

The eco-organization Alcome at the helm of the initiative

Behind this initiative, presented as civic-minded, are in reality the tobacco manufacturers, who intervene through their eco-organization Alcome. Created in 2021 by the main cigarette manufacturers present on the French market as part of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) sector, Alcome is responsible for organizing the prevention, collection, and treatment of waste from tobacco products, particularly cigarette butts. This structure is financed directly by the tobacco industry, which retains strategic and operational control (Learn more about Alcome). Therefore, Alcome's participation in awareness-raising events such as the Mégothon poses a major problem of governance and independence, in contradiction with the principles of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control ratified by France, in particular its article 5.3, which prohibits any form of industry interference in public health policies.

Alcome's support for this initiative goes far beyond mere institutional endorsements. The eco-organization's logo is clearly displayed on the homepage of the official Mégothon website, as well as on all communication materials made available to participants. This visible presence confirms the eco-organization's central involvement as the initiative's main partner.

Furthermore, the owners of the Mégothon and the Trash Spotter platform are also behind the Initiative for Nature association, whose main sponsor is the consulting firm KPMG. This firm is known for its long-standing ties with the tobacco industry, notably through auditing, strategic consulting, and risk management services for several multinationals in the sector.[2]This interconnection between associative structures, technical actors and industrial partners raises legitimate questions about the transparency, independence and real objectives of an initiative presented as civic but likely to serve private interests.

Influencer partnerships serving a positive narrative

The 2025 edition of the Mégothon marks a new step in the visibility strategy of the eco-organization Alcome, with the explicit use of influencer partnerships. The Instagram account @epicurieux, run by Jamy Gourmaud's team and specializing in popularizing science and culture, relayed the event via a collaborative video. This intervention reinforces the legitimacy of the Mégothon among a young audience, whether school or family, by relying on short, educational, and popular formats, which address social issues in an accessible and supportive tone. This communication strategy is not unprecedented: in 2023, the influencer Inoxtag had already contributed to the promotion of the event by participating in a large-scale collection in several French cities, generating strong visibility among teenagers.

An argument centered on the smoker's responsibility

In the video produced with Epicurieux, the messages broadcast focus exclusively on the toxicity of cigarette butts to the environment, which is scientifically accurate. However, no mention is made of the tobacco industry's responsibility in the design, marketing, and mass distribution of these polluting products. This silence contributes to a depoliticized and decontextualized approach to the problem, obscuring the central role of manufacturers in the production of this particularly problematic waste.

More broadly, the general argument surrounding the Mégothon, which can be found both on the initiative's website and in its Instagram posts, is based on an individual awareness-raising strategy. The discourse systematically emphasizes the uncivil behavior of smokers who throw their cigarette butts in public spaces, and calls for responsible actions. However, the structural responsibility of tobacco manufacturers is never mentioned, whether it concerns the very design of their particularly polluting products, their choice to continue producing filters, or their role in creating and maintaining a single-use consumption system that generates persistent, toxic, and unnecessary waste.

This approach helps shift the burden of responsibility onto the consumer, while leaving intact the tobacco industry's economically and environmentally destructive model. In this respect, it faithfully reflects the discourse promoted by the industry itself, as well as by the eco-organization Alcome, which adopts a similar stance in its corporate communications and on its own website. The emphasis is systematically placed on raising smokers' awareness and combating uncivil behavior, without ever questioning the role of the producer in the design, marketing, and proliferation of single-use products with lasting environmental consequences.

Promotion of counterproductive measures

The Mégothon initiative is not limited to cigarette butt collection operations: it is also accompanied by the active promotion of pocket ashtrays, presented as a simple and concrete solution to limit the pollution generated by cigarette butts thrown on the ground. These ashtrays are offered to participants in several partner cities, sometimes accompanied by communication materials stamped with the Alcome logo. This gesture, seemingly innocuous and pragmatic, is in fact part of a broader strategy carried out by the eco-organization, which has made it one of its emblematic communication tools[3].

Alcome distributes these ashtrays on a massive scale at sporting and cultural events (such as the Tour de France and festivals), in partnership with local authorities. This type of initiative is touted as a concrete and incentive-based response to cigarette butt pollution. However, their actual environmental effectiveness is largely debatable, and their widespread use raises several concerns.

On the one hand, pocket ashtrays help to strengthen the social acceptability of smoking by offering smokers a way to smoke "cleanly," including in contexts where tobacco consumption might be socially or regulatoryly frowned upon. Scientific literature also highlights that the presence of ashtrays not only normalizes smoking but also encourages consumption for smokers. On the other hand, this measure is fully in line with a strategy of individual accountability, which is based on the idea that the smoker is solely responsible for the pollution caused by the product he or she consumes. In this way, it contributes to invisibilizing the systemic responsibility of tobacco manufacturers, who design, manufacture, and massively distribute disposable, non-biodegradable, and highly toxic products.

Finally, this active promotion of pocket ashtrays constitutes a particularly problematic greenwashing tool. It allows the tobacco industry, through Alcome, to position itself as a player committed to environmental protection, while maintaining the core of its economic model, based on the sale of deadly and polluting products. The implicit message conveyed is that of a responsible industry, which seeks to mitigate the effects of its products, even as it continues to promote them and advocate for their mass distribution.

Thus, far from being a relevant environmental solution, pocket ashtrays appear above all to be a counterproductive communication tool, diverting attention from truly effective measures such as banning filters, reducing production at source, or even ensuring regulatory accountability for tobacco waste producers. Their promotion within the framework of the Mégothon contributes to blurring the lines between environmental awareness and legitimizing industrial interests.

Silence on real structural solutions

The Mégothon initiative, although presented as an environmental awareness-raising campaign, never mentions concrete, effective, and structural measures that would sustainably reduce cigarette butt pollution. No recommendations are made for the development of smoke-free areas, a proven measure for limiting tobacco waste in public spaces. Similarly, the ban on cigarette filters, whether plastic or supposedly "biodegradable," is never mentioned, even though their environmental impact is widely documented and their health benefits for smokers are strictly nonexistent.

Filters were actually introduced by the tobacco industry in the 1950s, not to protect smokers, but to reassure a public increasingly aware of the risks associated with smoking, and thus delay the adoption of restrictive policies. Presented as elements of "harm reduction," they are in reality a marketing tool, historically used to attract new audiences, particularly women and young people, by associating cigarettes with a "softer," "cleaner," or even more modern image. This marketing subterfuge continues today, while filters aggravate addiction by altering the temperature of the smoke and represent a major source of plastic pollution, massively released into the environment.

Internationally, a growing consensus is forming around the banning of filters, now identified as single-use products with no health justification. Several anti-smoking organizations, including the National Committee Against Tobacco (CNCT) in France, and environmental NGOs grouped within the Stop Tobacco Pollution Alliance, are actively campaigning to have cigarette filters included in the list of single-use plastic products to be banned, as part of the ongoing negotiations for the global treaty on plastic pollution. This regulatory lever is considered a key tool for stemming tobacco pollution at the source.

Generally speaking, the tobacco industry and the eco-organization Alcome oppose all environmental and health regulatory measures likely to hinder their economic model, whether it be the banning of filters, the development of smoke-free spaces or even the installation of collective ashtrays in public spaces, which could restrict consumption and make the harmfulness of the product more visible. This refusal to undertake high-impact actions reveals a communication strategy which, behind a discourse of apparent responsibility, seeks above all to preserve the commercial sustainability of toxic products whose effects on health and the environment are nevertheless well established.

A corporate social responsibility operation to green industry

The Mégothon illustrates a typical greenwashing communication strategy, a mechanism well-documented in other industrial sectors with a significant environmental footprint. In this case, the eco-organization Alcome—funded and controlled by tobacco manufacturers—uses environmental rhetoric to reposition its funders as responsible and engaged actors, while simultaneously concealing their primary responsibility for the pollution generated by cigarette butts. The narrative put forward is based on a deliberately partial narrative, centered on consumer behavior and individual actions, without questioning the production model or industrial choices at the origin of the proliferation of this waste.

Far from being neutral, the Mégothon relies on a hybrid communications platform, combining citizen mobilization, industrial sponsorship, institutional partnerships, and social media influence campaigns. This hybridization blurs the lines between public interest initiative and covert branding, helping to legitimize the image of an industry that nevertheless continues to advocate the mass marketing of polluting and addictive products.

Public health and anti-smoking associations, such as the National Committee Against Smoking (CNCT), have been warning for several years about the risks of the tobacco industry exploiting environmental policies. They call on local authorities, associations and citizens to exercise the utmost vigilance and to prioritize truly independent actions focused on prevention, waste reduction at source and producer accountability, rather than on corrective actions that, in fact, reinforce the image strategy of the tobacco industry..

Finally, this type of initiative also aims to make people forget how the tobacco industry, through the operator Alcome, has already been sanctioned several times by the French State for failure to meet its legal obligations within the framework of the extended producer responsibility sector.[4]. . Recently, a new condemnation by the State, published in the Official Journal in March 2024, highlighted its failure to comply with the requirements in terms of transparency, governance and effective coverage of costs related to the collection and treatment of cigarette butts. These elements reinforce concerns about the ability of this eco-organization run by tobacco manufacturers to act in the public interest and fully fulfill its environmental mission.

©Generation Without Tobacco

AE

[1] Note, Plastic Treaty – The Crucial Intersection of Tobacco Control and Environmental Health, CNCT, published November 2024, consulted May 19, 2025

[2] Press release, Professor Martinet's post. KPMG report: putting an end to the cigarette manufacturers' disinformation operation, CNCT, consulted on May 19, 2025

[3] Tobacco-free generation, Pocket ashtrays: false environmental solution, real marketing tool, published September 1, 2022, accessed May 19, 2025

[4] Tobacco-free generation, The eco-organization Alcome condemned once again by the State, published June 26, 2024, accessed May 19, 2025