A team of researchers calls for an outright ban on cigarette filters. These products are not safer for health, and are a real source of pollution. This new editorial has just been published in the magazine BMJ .
At the beginning of the 1950s, we were already beginning to suspect that the products contained inside cigarettes could be responsible for certain cancers. Manufacturers then developed filters made from cellulose acetate . These devices are actually capable of retaining some large tar particles. On the other hand, they can not do much against the finest particles. These, filter or not, enter our lungs and do a lot of damage.
We also know that cellulose acetate has a hard time breaking down in nature. If for some years the viewfinder has been pointed at plastic bags, and more recently at straws, cigarette butts have so far gone unnoticed. In 32 years, an NGO has yet collected more than 60 million on the beaches. Of the 5.6 trillion filters produced worldwide each year , an estimated two-thirds also ends up in the oceans, via storm drains, streams and rivers.
In view of these health and environmental concerns, researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine of the United Kingdom are urging the relevant authorities to remove the sale of these products. For example, they call on the European Union – which plans to ban the sale of many single-use plastic products by 2021 – to also consider filtered cigarettes.
They also believe that the simple fact of banning the sale of filtered cigarettes could wean the world off tobacco.
“The idea that a pack of cigarettes would be restricted to plain packaging with graphic warnings seemed unthinkable at the time , they explain. The time has come to take a similar radical approach for the common planetary good. If we fail to reduce the billions of cigarette butts added to the global waste burden each year, we are undermining our efforts to reduce global plastic waste and missing the opportunity to help end the global tobacco epidemic” .
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