Let’s reflect on cigarettes today and consider the scale of the problem they introduce:
- Cigarette butts are the most common item of litter collected from beach cleanups – worldwide, they amount to 845,000 tons of litter per year.
- An estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette butts discarded annually worldwide.
- A single butt can potentially contaminate up to 1,000 liters of water.
- Cigarettes cause 90,000 fires each year in the US alone.
- And smoking impacts human health, puts a strain on health care systems, and hurt non-smokers exposed to second-hand health.
The impacts are individual, environmental, systemic and societal.
So how can we either cut down on smoking (tried and failed) OR get cigarette companies to pay for the damage they do or we hit smokers where it may make a difference: the wallet.
I propose a deposit system.
- What if we treated cigarette butts like bottles, with a deposit system?
- What if, when people buy a pack of cigarettes, they have to pay a deposit per cigarette. Let’s say a pack of 20 cigarettes costs EUR 6 (I think that’s the cost in Austria.)
- What if we increased the price of a pack to EUR 12, with a 30c deposit per butt?
- What if we held the industry accountable for the waste they create?
Shops would have to have some sort of return system, funded by the tobacco industry. And the tobacco industry would need to collect and dispose of said butts sustainably, with careful checks and heavy fines for failing to comply.
The result? Maybe:
1. Fewer discarded butts.
2. Decrease in pollution in public spaces, beaches and water systems.
3. A whole new income stream for people who are on low (or no) incomes who collect butts and claim the deposits (in South Africa and elsewhere, recycling rich people’s rubbish is a viable micro business, for example.)
4. Industry accountability and public awareness.
5. A possible win for individuals, the environment, systems and wider society.
Could this work? Is it finally time for cigarette companies (and smokers) to take responsibility for the mess they leave behind?
You tell me.
#002 // Short. Honest. Human.
SOURCES (accessed 1st July 2025)
- What’s the environmental impact of cigarette butts?
https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/whats-the-environmental-impact-of-cigarette-butts - Cigarette butts: the ocean’s hidden enemy
https://www.greenmemag.com/environment/cigarette-butts-the-oceans-hidden-enemy/ - Cigarette Butts: Toxic Threat and Tobacco Control Opportunity
https://globalhealthnow.org/2024-01/cigarette-butts-toxic-threat-and-tobacco-control-opportunity -
Effects of discarded cigarette butts on the quality of UK drinking water
https://smartwatermagazine.com/blogs/prof-arun-arjunan/effects-discarded-cigarette-butts-quality-uk-drinking-water