Spanish cigarette companies to pay for cleaning butts

Tobac­co com­pa­nies must clean up Span­ish roads and beach­es for cig­a­rette butts under new envi­ron­men­tal regulations.

Mil­lions of cig­a­rette butts are thrown away each year, cre­at­ing tox­ic plas­tic waste that takes decades to decompose.

Sta­tis­tics for 2020 reveal that about one-fifth of adults in Spain smoke daily.

The reg­u­la­tion went into effect on Fri­day, but it is not yet clear how it will be imple­ment­ed and whether the costs will be passed on to consumers.

A report by the Catalun­ya Reze­ro Foun­da­tion esti­mates that Cata­lan munic­i­pal­i­ties pay €12 to €21 ($13 to $22) per capi­ta per year to clean tobac­co streets, with the cost high­er in coastal areas. is shown.

Cig­a­rette lit­ter­ing is “most com­mon” on the west­ern Mediter­ranean coast, the report said, cit­ing exist­ing mea­sures, such as pub­lic aware­ness cam­paigns and portable ash­trays on beach­es, that are insufficient.

This reg­u­la­tion makes man­u­fac­tur­ers respon­si­ble for col­lect­ing dis­card­ed cig­a­rette butts and trans­port­ing them for disposal.

Accord­ing to local media, the Mesa del Taba­co asso­ci­a­tion said it was not yet sure how the reg­u­la­tion would be implemented.

Most cig­a­rette butts have a fil­ter made of cel­lu­lose acetate fiber, a type of bioplastic.

Sci­en­tists say microplas­tic pol­lu­tion can also stunt plant growth.

The new rules are part of a law passed last year ban­ning sin­gle-use plas­tics such as cut­lery and straws and are made in com­pli­ance with a Euro­pean Union directive.

A sim­i­lar bill was intro­duced in Ire­land on Thurs­day, requir­ing tobac­co com­pa­nies to pay for cig­a­rette littering.

About half of Ire­land’s trash is tobac­co relat­ed, accord­ing to Ire­land’s Nation­al Garbage Pol­lu­tion Mon­i­tor­ing System.

In recent years, Spain has intro­duced a series of dras­tic mea­sures to curb smok­ing. Last July, smok­ing was banned on all pub­lic beach­es in Barcelona, with fines of €30 ($32) for violators.

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