Spain butts in: Tobacco companies must pay to clean beaches, parks littered with cigarette butts [details]

Cigarette butts spilling beyond the ashtrays and trash cans are not just unseemly but downright annoying. In a move hailed for its logic and fairness, Spain has ruled that tobacco companies will have to bear the costs of cleaning up millions of cigarette butts tossed thoughtlessly onto Spain's streets, beaches and public spaces.

While the country's new environmental regulations came into force a while ago, it is yet unclear as to who will finally pay for the move, whether it'll be passed onto the consumers or the companies spend out of their social responsibility accounts.

Reportedly, millions of cigarette butts are thrown away each year, by tourists and locals alike, making them an environmental hazard and concern. These butts release toxic plastic waste and the one that can take multiple decades to break down.

A statistic reported by Statista, in Spain an average of 22 percent of the population reported smoking in 2022. Out of these, 20 percent were daily smokers.

Why it makes sense?

The tobacco companies can either resort to bearing the brunt of the heavy costs of cleaning up or can teach their consumers civic responsibility and bring down the expenses. In a similar move, last year Spain introduced a law that banned single-use plastics like cutlery and straws. Not just Spain, but even Ireland has introduced similar legislation, making it mandatory on the part of the tobacco companies to share the expenses of cleaning up cigarette litter.

Spain's efforts at discouraging smoking

Many locals also see the move as an extension of last year's sweeping measures that aim at curbing smoking. Last July, smoking was banned on all of Barcelona's public beaches, with fines for offenders as high as $32.

Cigarette butts - the most littered item in the world

A report by the Catalan Rezero Foundation called cigarette waste the "most abundant waste" on the beaches of the western Mediterranean. It also said that the already existing measures like awareness campaigns and portable beach ashtrays had been ineffective, reported the BBC. The report also estimated that local authorities in Catalonia were paying between $13-22 per inhabitant per year on road cleaning of cigarettes—with higher rates on coastal areas. As per the new rules, the manufacturers will be paying for the expenses of collecting the discarded butts and transporting them for waste treatment.

The costs of cleaning are not any better in many other nations of the world. A WHO report says that each year countries like China and India also spend monumental amounts on the cleaning up of cigarette ends. While it costs China roughly $2.6 billion each, it costs India roughly $766 million. As per Dr Ruediger Krech, Director of Health Promotion at WHO, "roughly 4.5 trillion cigarette filters pollute our oceans, rivers, city sidewalks, parks, soil and beaches every year." If the law were to be extended to the rest of the world and the costs transferred to tobacco companies, the effects would be astronomical too.