Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fifteenth sitting)

Danny Chambers Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 30th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

I was absolutely shocked to learn that cigarette butts account for one in five pieces of discarded plastic. When it is predicted that by 2050 there will be more tonnage of plastic in the ocean than fish, we should look at every way possible of protecting the environment and wildlife from plastic pollution. Back in 2019, a third successful dive was made to the Mariana trench—the deepest part of the ocean; it is 36,000 feet deep, which is greater than the height at which jumbo jets fly—and I was surprised that when the people were down there documenting previously unseen life forms, they came across plastic pollution. This is such a serious issue that we need to look at every way possible of reducing plastic pollution. Those tiny cigarette butts in particular can be swallowed by a huge number of creatures, as well as contaminating the environment.

[Dr Johnson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that important intervention. He is absolutely right that these items are a huge danger to the environment, and it is sad when we go to parts of our world that are still not well explored, such as the Mariana trench, and find evidence of damage caused by the human race, such as plastic pollution. Although I have huge sympathy for people who have become addicted to nicotine and find it difficult to quit smoking, there is no excuse for the litter that it creates all over our beaches and our urban and rural areas.

Cigarette filters are neither biodegradable nor effectively recyclable. They are made, as I said, primarily from cellulose acetate—a plastic material that does not biodegrade. Even after two years of decomposition, cigarette filters will have lost only about 38% of their mass, and the remaining material continues to persist in the environment. During that time, filters leach harmful substances, including heavy metals and toxic chemicals such as arsenic, that have been inhaled through the filter and into the surrounding environment, further contaminating soil and water sources.

Cigarette butt waste has been shown to impact marine and coastal environments. Studies have demonstrated that cigarette filters affect the micro-biodiversity of coastal sediment and that they pose harm to marine animals that ingest them. That is a growing concern, as the hon. Member for Winchester said, as plastic waste continues to accumulate in the ocean, harming wildlife and disrupting ecosystems. The Ocean Conservancy’s international coastal clean-up has, over the course of 32 years, collected more than 60 million cigarette butts from the ocean. Although that sounds like a lot, that accounts for just 0.00001% of all cigarette filters thrown away in a single year, so this is a difficult thing to clean up.

Despite the growing awareness of the environmental impact of single-use plastics, cigarette filters have not been subject to the same regulations as other plastic products. For example, the European Union banned many forms of single-use plastic in 2019, but cigarette filters were not included, leaving a significant loophole. As cigarette consumption remains widespread, the environmental impact of the filters continues to grow. In October 2024, Santa Cruz county in California became the first jurisdiction in the world to approve a ban on filtered cigarettes and cigars.

One of the questions I have for the hon. Member for Dartford who tabled the new clause—he sadly is not here—is why he has chosen to use the 1990 Act. The previous Conservative Government banned a number of single-use plastics on the basis that they were harmful to the environment, that there were non-plastic, more environmentally friendly and more suitably priced items available, and that it would help to improve the environment, which is a very good thing. However, one of the reasons for introducing those bans through secondary legislation under the 1990 Act was that there was not an opportunity to do so in primary legislation, because of the time constraints of the parliamentary calendar. The Minister has talked about getting time for primary legislation already.

This Bill is a piece of primary legislation, and to add cigarette filters to it only requires the Government to write in clause 1 “and cigarette filters too”, and to make consequential amendments through the Bill on that basis. I agree with the principle that cigarette filters are a bad thing for the environment, and they are not good for people’s health, but I am not entirely sure why the 1990 Act is being used and why the Minister has not included filters in clause 1 and consequentially throughout the Bill. Perhaps he can tell us in winding up.