THE IRISH tobacco industry should pay a levy to compensate for the amount of litter caused by cigarette butts, Ash Ireland has said.
Speaking yesterday, on World No Tobacco Day, the anti-tobacco lobby group said close to 50 per cent of urban litter in Ireland is tobacco related and its clean-up places a burden on local authorities.
The organisation highlighted, in particular, the presence of cigarette butts around the country which are made from cellulose acetate, a type of plastic that can take up to 12 years to fully decompose. It said an estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette ends discarded across the world each year are believed to kill millions of birds, fish and other animals and are sometimes eaten by young children.
Dr Angie Brown, chairwoman of Ash Ireland said the organisation met Minister for the Environment John Gormley last November and their proposal to impose a levy on the tobacco industry was well received.
“Surely we should be applying the ‘polluter pays’ principle in this instance,” Ms Brown said.
She suggested an environmental tax of 50 per cent per pack of 20 cigarettes to be levied directly on the tobacco industry.
“Our Government is strapped for cash and the tobacco industry is hugely profitable, so why are our taxes being used to clear up the litter of such a wealthy industry?” Ms Brown asked.
A spokeswoman for John Player Sons in Mullingar, owned by international company Imperial Tobacco, said it would be opposed to a litter levy on cigarettes.
“This proposed levy supposes all smokers are litterers; that is not the case,” she said.
The spokeswoman said the company would embrace any initiatives to help address litter in conjunction with, for example, fast food outlets.
