Major European Cities Press EU to Ban Cigarette Filters

Large European cities including Brussels, Munich, Dublin and Genoa are pressing the European Union to ban the sale of cigarette filters. The cities say the plastic tips have no health benefit and are the main source of litter in public spaces.

The cities have joined the 'No (Plastic) Filter' campaign, an initiative backed by The Hague city authorities and the Dutch government, along with other cities, water management authorities and environmental associations. Several other cities in Belgium, Germany, Czechia, Hungary and Lithuania have also joined the campaign.

Campaign members say the EU principle of extended producer responsibility — rules obliging tobacco manufacturers to bear waste management costs — has not reduced filter pollution, and that a total ban is needed.

Anas Ben Abdelmoumen, the Brussels city councillor responsible for public cleanliness, told Politico that cigarette butts account for as much as 30 percent of all litter in Brussels. He said the litter not only degrades the urban landscape but places an extraordinary burden on cleaning teams.

The campaign comes as the EU reviews two major laws that could lead to a ban on filters, or at least on the plastic they contain. Campaign members say the European Commission's review of the Tobacco Products Directive is the opportunity to ban filters; if that fails, the upcoming review of the Single-Use Plastics Directive could be used to ban plastic in filters.

The World Health Organization also favours banning or phasing out filters, saying they present no health benefit.

Karl Beerenfenger, campaign lead and a member of the Dutch NGO Fair Resource Foundation, said the cigarette filter is the most commonly discarded item in public spaces, contains plastic, causes toxic environmental pollution and generates considerable costs for local authorities and society. He said the filter does not make smoking less harmful and called it a misleading product.

The tobacco industry, however, says filters do have a health use. Nathan Jones, head of European regulatory strategy at British American Tobacco, said there is no safe cigarette with or without a filter, but studies show filters help reduce exposure to some toxic substances and help meet EU cigarette emissions law. He said if a viable alternative deployable at scale existed, they would use it, but there is none.

In The Hague, the cost of cleaning cigarette butts thrown on public roads is estimated at around 2 million euros a year, according to deputy mayor Isabelle Broeders. She told Politico that the evaluation of the Tobacco Products Directive is an important opportunity to ban all cigarette filters, whatever material is used.

Most cigarette filters are made from cellulose acetate, a plant-based type of plastic that decomposes with difficulty. Biodegradable alternatives exist but are not widely used. The lobby Tobacco Europe opposed a possible restriction of plastic filters by the Commission.

Brussels and The Hague are both convinced that banning only the plastic inside the filter would not be enough. Anas Ben Abdelmoumen raised that allowing alternatives to plastic creates a dangerous loophole: manufacturers could introduce new materials that escape technical definitions of plastic while remaining almost as harmful and persistent in the environment.

The Dutch government said it is focusing on plastics in cigarette filters in the review of the single-use plastics directive. A spokesperson told Politico that if that approach proved unsuccessful, the goal could also be reached through the Tobacco Products Directive.

Yogi Hendlin, an environmental philosopher and public health researcher at Erasmus University Rotterdam, said the filter itself brings no health benefit and has even been shown to increase the risk of lung cancer. He cited a landmark 2006 US court case in which it was established that tobacco manufacturers had misled smokers by marketing 'light' and low-tar cigarettes as less harmful products.