Passing the butt

The French government wants the tobacco industry to devise a way of disposing of cigarette butts in an environment-friendly manner, according to a story in The Local.
It is particularly concerned about the estimated 30 billion butts that are carelessly thrown away by smokers and that end up littering streets.
The government’s new anti-waste plan, which was announced on Monday, includes 50 measures to help clean up the streets, one of which involves persuading tobacco manufacturers to launch a recycling scheme and to participate financially in collection efforts.
The government is suggesting that tobacco companies increase the retail price of cigarettes by a few centimes a pack as part of an ‘eco-participation’ scheme.
The Local story said that such schemes already existed in France in respect of other products, but the examples it gave, furniture, appliances and electronic goods, did not include any other FMCGs.
But convincing tobacco companies might not be easy given that the government is raising cigarette taxes and, therefore, prices.
Eric Sensi-Minautier, head of communications at British American Tobacco Europe West, reportedly told Le Parisien that whereas his company understood the concern of the authorities, the problem arose from a lack of civic behavior on the part of some consumers.
“Under the pretext of the environment, this is actually a new tobacco tax,” he was quoted as saying. “Making consumers pay for the bad behavior of a few is not the answer.”
Chimirec, a company that specializes in the collection of hazardous waste and that is responsible for gathering butts from collection points around the Paris business district of La Defense, said that the butts were incinerated because the volumes were too low to make it profitable to create a sector dedicated to their recycling.
The full story is at: https://www.thelocal.fr/20180425/france-looks-to-tobacco-companies-for-help-in-cigarette-butt-clean-up-blitz.