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Ban cigarette filters? (2014-03-21)

According to studies by UC researchers, neither outdoor ashtrays nor recycling programs will solve the problem of cigarette butts, which contain toxic chemicals and stack up at the rate of 5.6 trillion a year. What's needed is an outright ban on filtered cigarettes, said Richard Barnes, a policy researcher at the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education.

 


 

If a ban on filtered cigarettes sounds radical, consider this: Filters don't make cigarettes less toxic and, in fact, may make them more dangerous. Filters concentrate cigarette toxins and contain several of their own.
They're made of plastic, which isn't biodegradable; and these toxic pellets travel long distances, including along waterways, joining the gyre of floating plastic in the ocean.

Barnes and other researchers with TRDRP have determined that even unsmoked cigarette filters are toxic, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards. The next step is determining whether discarded cigarette butts affect the food chain.

"What we're trying to do is establish enough of a scientific basis so that the California EPA division of toxic waste management can issue some regulations," said Barnes.

Thomas Novotny, TRDRP-supported principal investigator, global health expert and medical epidemiologist at San Diego State University, said it's not too early to push for a ban on filtered cigarettes. While smoking rates are dropping or are stable in America and Europe, they are skyrocketing in Africa, South America and Asia. China now has more smokers than the entire U.S. population.

For more information
University of California - Ban cigarette filters, urge researchers

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