Quezon City. As the plastic-free month is observed this July, the EcoWaste Coalition and the Action on Smoking and Health (ASH-Philippines) joined the “No Butts Day” to draw attention to cigarette butt pollution and the need for resolute measures to protect the people and environment from addictive and injurious tobacco products and their byproduct litter, such as discarded plastic filters, the “everywhere plastic and toxic waste.”
Originating from the Netherlands, the No Butts Day’s volunteers across the globe collected and counted discarded cigarette filters to show the scale of the problem and to push for a ban on plastic filters to curb plastic and microplastic pollution. Last year, volunteers picked 964,000 cigarette butts from streets and nature, including 6,900 discarded filters collected by EcoWaste Coalition and ASH-Philippines.
A global ban on plastic cigarette filters is needed, the Dutch Plastic Cigarette Butt Collective said, as cellulose acetate-based butts 1) are not biodegradable and will break down into microplastics and nanoplastics, 2) are laden with hazardous substances that can leach into the environment (“one single cigarette butt can pollute up to 1,000 liters of water”), and 3) are poisonous to wildlife such as birds, fish and other animals who mistake butts for food and thus ingest plastic and hazardous chemicals.
For this year’s No Butts Day, EcoWaste Coalition and ASH-Philippines collected 5,250 cigarette butts tossed on the ground, plant boxes, and butt receptacles at a commercial center in Quezon City (conducted on July 3), and in the plant pots and sidewalks of the historic Intramuros in Manila City (held on July 4).
“The only solution to tobacco and related product waste is upstream, meaning keep them from being produced, marketed and used in the first place,” said Dr. Maricar Limpin, Executive Director, ASH-Philippines. “These unnecessary, addictive and deadly products need to be phased out to protect people’s health and the environment amid the climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution crisis afflicting the planet.”
Aileen Lucero, National Coordinator of the EcoWaste Coalition, could not agree more with ASH-Philippines. “Countless cigarette butts enter the environment every year, and there really is no practical way to collect and recycle this toxic plastic residual garbage. To eliminate this ‘everywhere plastic and toxic waste,’ as well as the toxins in tobacco products and their byproduct smoke, it is essential to strengthen and enforce tobacco control measures to protect the people and the environment against health-damaging tobacco and nicotine products and their smoke and waste.”
To mark last year’s World Health Day on April 7 and World No Tobacco Day on May 31, ASH and the EcoWaste Coalition highlighted the non-recyclability of cigarette butts and electronic smoking devices (ESDs), stressing the need for an upstream solution to address the health and environmental threats from cigarettes and ESDs.
References:
https://www.nobuttsday.org/en/
https://ecowastecoalition.blogspot.com/2025/04/ash-and-ecowaste-coalition-cite-non.html
