Time to kick the butt of the most common litter item in the world: Ban cigarette filters.
Cellulose acetate
Cigarette filters
Ecological risk
Planetary boundaries
Plastics treaty
Single-use plastics
Journal
The Science of the total environment
ISSN: 1879-1026
Titre abrégé: Sci Total Environ
Pays: Netherlands
ID NLM: 0330500
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
20 Mar 2023
20 Mar 2023
Historique:
received:
02
11
2022
revised:
22
12
2022
accepted:
24
12
2022
pubmed:
2
1
2023
medline:
2
2
2023
entrez:
1
1
2023
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
Cigarette filters offer no public health benefits, are single-use plastics (cellulose acetate) and are routinely littered. Filters account for a significant proportion of plastic litter worldwide, requiring considerable public funds to remove, and are a source of microplastics. Used cigarette filters can leech toxic chemicals and pose an ecological risk to both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Bottom-up measures, such as focusing on consumer behaviour, are ineffective and we need to impose top-down solutions (i.e., bans) if we are to reduce the prevalence of this number one litter item. Banning filters offers numerous ecological, socioeconomic, and public health benefits.
Identifiants
pubmed: 36587695
pii: S0048-9697(22)08360-7
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.161256
pii:
doi:
Substances chimiques
Plastics
0
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
161256Informations de copyright
Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts
Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.