100 signatures reached
To: Jeremy Hunt
Revise UK law to make Non-Biodegradable Cigarette filters illegal.
Reduce the amount of total litter left for future generations, by ensuring that Smokers' habits stop with the individual; and not with our environmental living standards.
Switching from Cellulose Acetate filters to naturally spun filters made from renewable materials (such as Cotton, Flax, and Hemp composites), would help eliminate a source of garbage that globally, accounts for more than 30% of human waste.[1]
Why is this important?
"Six million cigarette butts are dropped on the City's [London] streets every year and we spend £3.8 million cleaning it up, it's no small problem."[2]
Cigarette butts are the most common form of anthropogenic (man-made) litter in the world, as approximately 5.6 trillion cigarettes are smoked every year worldwide. Of those it is estimated that 4.5 trillion cigarette butts become litter every year. [3][4]
If we are to promote the United Kingdom as a 'climate-conscious' nation, we must be willing to make implementations that go further than Congestion Charges, Renewable-Energy quotas, and CO2 emissions controls; it stands to reason that changes to everyday materials and consumption, creates visible ripples.
In an age where environmental policy is in a constant tug of war between skepticism and economic interest, a simple measure such as this would set a cost-effective benchmark for other nations.
One out every 5 pieces of litter encountered, is a cigarette butt[5]; imagine a world where within one generation, our children would never have to see another wasted filter ever again.
References:
http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/6/5/1691 [4]
http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/12/15-152744/en/ [5]
Image source: http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/keep-britain-tidy-workers-install-a-giant-cigarette-butt-in-trafalgar-picture-id80559920
