Category: Filters

  • Metal detection

    Metal detection

    Metals linked to cancer are present in higher levels in medwakh and shisha products than in cigarettes, according to a story at thenational.ae citing a new UAE study.

    Scientists in Sharjah and Abu Dhabi were said to have found that, in comparisons to cigarettes, both medwakh and shisha tobacco contain more nickel, chromium, copper and zinc.

    The research follows a study earlier this year reporting much higher levels of nicotine and tar being delivered by medwakh than by cigarettes.

    The researchers said this put smokers at risk of developing a range of serious medical problems, including lung cancer and coronary artery disease.

    “Traditional medwakh and shisha pipes have no filters, so toxic metals can quickly enter the lungs, causing different diseases, such as lung and oral cancers, oral infections and cardiovascular diseases,” said Ayesha Mohammed, a chemistry lecturer at the University of Sharjah and the lead author of the study.

    “I would never recommend dokha [medwakh] and shisha smoking because both don’t have filters, so trace elements can easily enter the human body compared to cigarettes and cause several cancers.

    “Medwakh smoking is a loaded pistol and time will pull the trigger.”

    Published in Oxford University Press’s Journal of Analytical Toxicology, the latest study looked at 13 medwakh tobacco products and three shisha products, analysing their properties to determine metal concentrations.

    The levels were then compared with cigarette tobacco to establish which was more likely to pose health risks.

  • No such thing as free waste

    No such thing as free waste

    Germany has come out in support of the EU Commission’s plan to make the tobacco industry cover the costs of cigarette waste, according to a Xinhua Newswire story quoting the Funke media group.
    The Environment Minister Svenja Schulze was quoted as saying that those who produced disposable items, such as cigarettes, would have to take more responsibility for the waste that was generated. The tobacco industry could be involved, for example, in contributing to the costs of cleaning up beaches and parks.
    In May, the Commission called on the tobacco industry to shoulder part of the clean-up costs of single-use plastic in cigarette filters.
    Schulze said an EU-wide ban on unnecessary disposable plastic would be introduced before the end of this year.
    It was necessary to resort to more drastic measures than have been in place in the past in order to stop the pollution of the seas and the environment.
    The Commission, the EU Parliament and the Council of Ministers are due to discuss a new directive on single-use plastics.

  • Industry accused of success

    Industry accused of success

    The tobacco industry is “reverting to tricks and stunts” in a bid to attract young smokers, according to a story in The Guardian quoting the head of the Public Health Association of Australia.
    Adjunct Professor Terry Slevin made his comment after analysis published in the British Medical Journal’s Tobacco Control had shown that cigarettes with flavor capsules were the fastest growing segment of the combustible tobacco market.
    Slevin described the modification of tobacco products to make them more ‘appetising’ as “an extraordinary assault on public health”.
    “Any modification to tobacco products which clearly aim to increase rates of smoking and target young smokers should be ruthlessly resisted,” he was quoted as saying.
    “Australia has the lowest rates of smoking in the world among young people, and we now have a situation where more than 97 percent of children under 18 are never-smokers. The tobacco industry is clearly seeking to reverse that success and is reverting to tricks and stunts which should not be tolerated.”
    The Tobacco Control analysis published on Monday found the market for cigarettes with flavor capsules in the filter had ‘grown exponentially since being introduced in 2007’.
    The analysis, led by the University of Stirling in the UK, found there was a dearth of research on capsule cigarettes.
    Nevertheless, it reported that research with adult smokers in the UK, US and Australia had shown ‘consistently’ a preference for capsules among young adults.
    More than half of past-month smokers aged 12–17 years in Australia were said to have reported having tried a capsule cigarette.

  • Filters proposal unworkable

    Filters proposal unworkable

    British American Tobacco says that an EU proposal to ban certain single-use plastics amounts to a laudable goal but one that is not entirely workable in its present form, according to a story by Martin Banks for The Parliament Magazine.
    Banks reported that a parliamentary committee last week adopted a report by Belgian MEP Frederique Ries that aims to curb litter comprising the single-use plastics most commonly found on Europe’s beaches.
    Under the draft rules backed by the environment committee, single-use plastic items such as plates, cutlery and cotton buds, which make up more than 70 percent of marine litter, would be banned.
    Giovanni Carucci, vice president of EU Affairs with BAT, was said to have told the Magazine that reducing the environmental impact of single use plastics was a laudable goal.
    “We are committed to reducing our environmental impact across our supply chain,” he said. “While we need time to analyse the full impact of the proposal, what I can say is that in its current form, it is not entirely workable.
    “As the Commission acknowledges in its own impact assessment, today an alternative for cigarette filters that is as effective as cellulose acetate does not exist.
    “We’ve researched alternatives for years, including collaborating with sustainable filter start-ups and other external companies, however none of the alternatives match the performance of cellulose acetate and will likely be in breach of the requirements of the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD).
    “This makes the Parliament’s proposed consumption reduction targets a de facto ban on cigarettes, which is not in the scope of the Single Use Plastics Directive.”
    Carucci said also that labeling aspects of the proposal would conflict with existing tobacco-labeling requirements, and that the proposals could involve the tobacco industry and member states in disproportionate costs and complexity.
    Meanwhile, a commission spokesman was quoted as saying that more than 80 percent of marine litter comprised plastics. “Plastic residue is found in marine species – such as sea turtles, seals, whales and birds, but also in fish and shellfish, and therefore in the human food chain,” he said.
    “While plastics are a convenient, adaptable, useful and economically valuable material, they need to be better used, re-used and recycled.”
    Banks said that the Ries’ report would be put to a vote by the ‘full plenary’ in its 22-25 October session in Strasbourg.

  • Bring out the bins

    Bring out the bins

    A smokers’ lobby group today gave a cautious welcome to a new campaign to reduce cigarette litter but called on councils to provide more cigarette bins.
    “It’s all very well demanding that smokers bin the butt, but where are the bins?”, asked Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ group Forest in responding to the launch of Keep Britain Tidy’s ‘BinTheButt’ campaign.
    “Unfortunately many councils refuse to provide cig bins because they say it ‘normalises’ smoking. They can’t have it both ways.
    “We’d be happy to support this campaign but if Keep Britain Tidy really wants to address the issue of cigarette butts they need to lobby councils to provide more bins.
    “They also need to re-engage with the tobacco industry and work with consumer groups such as Forest.
    “Meanwhile a bin the butt campaign that ignores the importance of bins is a bit of a joke, to be honest.”

  • Going down the drain

    Going down the drain

    Half of the UK’s regular smokers believe it is acceptable to discard cigarette butts down a drain, despite expert warnings about the risk they pose to marine wildlife, according to a Press Association report published by the Daily Mail and citing the results of a survey.
    The survey, carried out for the environment charity Keep Britain Tidy, found that 52 percent of daily smokers polled said they did not see a problem with getting rid of their cigarette butts in this way.
    Meanwhile, only 53 percent of those surveyed said they realised the butts would end up in the sea when dropped down the drain.
    Thirty-nine percent of those polled said they had discarded a butt in this way during the past month, despite 77 percent of them saying they were concerned that toxins from their cigarettes could harm marine life.
    The survey of 4,146 people – including 502 smokers – was carried out by YouGov to mark the launch of Keep Britain Tidy’s Flicking Blue Murder campaign, raising awareness of the link between cigarettes and the marine environment.
    “Following Sir David Attenborough’s rallying cry to reduce plastic waste on Blue Planet II, we wanted to show how simple everyday behaviour can affect the environment,” said Keep Britain Tidy chief executive Allison Ogden-Newton.

  • Activists go after butts

    Activists go after butts

    A group of committed activists is targeting a product it describes as comprising the number-one man-made contaminant in the world’s oceans – cigarette butts, according to an NBC News story.
    A leading tobacco industry academic, a California lawmaker and a worldwide surfing organization are among those arguing cigarette filters should be banned.
    The nascent campaign hopes to be bolstered by linking activists focused on human health with those focused on the environment.
    “It’s pretty clear there is no health benefit from filters,” said Thomas Novotny, a professor of public health at San Diego State University. “They are just a marketing tool. And they make it easier for people to smoke.
    “It’s also a major contaminant, with all that plastic waste. It seems like a no-brainer to me that we can’t continue to allow this.”
    However, it has proved difficult in the past to prevent the littering of cigarette butts.
    According to the NBC News story, a California assemblyman who proposed a ban on cigarettes with filters couldn’t get the proposal out of committee. And while a New York state senator wrote legislation to create a rebate for butts returned to redemption centers, that idea stalled. San Francisco is said to have made the biggest inroad: a 60-cent per-pack fee to raise roughly $3 million a year to help defray the cost of cleaning up discarded cigarette filters, though the story did not say whether this initiative had met with success.
    But cigarette butts have now fallen into the sights also of one of the nation’s biggest anti-smoking organizations, the Truth initiative, which last week used the nationally-televised Video Music Awards to launch a new campaign against these butts.
    As in a couple of previous messages delivered via social media, the organization is going after ‘the most littered item in the world’.
    The story said that tobacco companies, fearful of being held responsible for cigarette litter, had launched a number of initiatives.
    But, in part, they appear to be up against recalcitrant smokers. Academics who followed prevention and clean-up campaigns said they encountered an essential problem: most smokers preferred to flick their butts.
    ‘In industry focus groups, some smokers said they thought filters were biodegradable, possibly made of cotton; others said they needed to grind the butts out on the ground, to assure they didn’t set a refuse can afire; others said they were so “disgusted” by the sight or smell of cigarette ashtrays, they didn’t want to dispose of their smokes that way,’ the story said. ‘In one focus group cited in industry documents, smokers said tossing their butts to the ground was “a natural extension of the defiant/rebellious smoking ritual”.’

  • Taken to the cleaners

    Taken to the cleaners

    France’s junior environment minister Brune Poirson has warned the tobacco industry that the government will force it to get involved in the collection and elimination of its waste if it doesn’t come up with alternative solutions by September, according to a Reuters story relayed by the TMA.
    Paris alone collects and disposes of 350 tonnes of discarded cigarette butts annually, despite the provision of wall-mounted ashtrays and the threat of a €68 (US$80) fine for those caught littering.
    The ministry estimates that 40 percent of the 30 billion butts thrown away in France every year end up on beaches and in forests, rivers and the sea. “The ministry will not be brutal on the method, but will be firm on the objectives,” said Poirson. “Pollution is major, so the commitments cannot be minor.
    A battle seems to be looming.
    British American Tobacco’s public affairs director Eric Sensi-Minautier was quoted as saying that it was not up to companies, smokers or citizens to pay, via additional taxes, for the cost linked to the clean-up of cigarette butts.
    And Imperial Brands said that it already encouraged smokers to dispose of butts responsibly.

  • Grime and punishment

    Grime and punishment

    The citizens of Nairobi, Kenya, are being threatened with dire consequences, including jail, if they discard cigarette butts and other waste materials carelessly, according to a story in The Nairobi News.
    In a new directive announced by Nairobi County Environment CEC Larry Wambua, littering the streets will attract a fine of up to Sh5,000 or a six-months jail term.
    Wambua said the move was aimed at enforcing waste management laws in the city.
    He said that, in addition, people who failed to demonstrate where they had been disposing of their waste would also be ‘taken to task’.
    “We will need to know if you are giving waste to the registered companies,” he said. “If you fail to show us, it will attract a fine of Sh100,000 or one year in jail,” he said.

  • Passing the butt

    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.