Canberra Times, 18 May 2006  

BAT should butt out of smoking reforms

Tobacco companies should have no role in anti-litter campaigns, 
writes Simon Chapman*                                

  

There are around 2.9 million smokers in Australia today, who on average smoke about 17 cigarettes a day. Together they generate over 18 billion non-biodegradable butts a year, of which an estimated 7 billion are thrown onto the ground as litter. Those that are still alight are responsible for an estimated 4600 fires a year, occasioning 14 deaths and a minimum of $80 million in damage. Butts are easily the single most common form of litter, although by weight they constitute less than 1% of litter from all sources.

There is growing concern about this form of unsightly and dangerous pollution. Google Australia shows 18,800 hits for "cigarette butt" and "litter" and the tobacco industry has got a nasty lungful of this new ill-wind. Smokers don't just pollute the air in pubs and for everyone around them in al fresco dining areas of restaurants, the world is also their ashtray. So British American Tobacco has set up the Butt Littering Trust which is coming soon with a big environmentally friendly smile to run a publicity campaign near you. Its staff will give thoughtful smokers a little film canister to store their butts, and suburbs will get awards for running local awareness campaigns.

The Butt Littering Trust is wholly supported by BAT, who sit on its board. The Trust's chairman is adamant that BAT plays no role in shaping the strategies and goals of reducing butt litter. So why then is the Trust equally adamant that it will limit its efforts to education and not join with other organisations to try and reduce the number of cigarettes being smoked, and then available to be discarded as litter?

All anti-litter campaigns openly embrace three broad strategies: reducing use, recycling and education to "do the right thing". Serious anti-litter organisations campaign to reducing packaging such as plastic bags, lobby for bottle deposit legislation and tougher fines for littering. The Butt Littering Trust deliberately limits itself to education. Imagine how seriously the community would regard a plastic bag manufacturer setting up a Trust to educate shoppers not to discard bags, while lobbying hard to oppose  any reduction in bag use.

But it gets worse. Along with long-time tobacco industry ally the Australian Hotels Association, the Trust has recently opposed moves by Newcastle City Council to ban smoking at outside al fresco tables. Reduced smoking opportunities mean reduced smoking. Over 25 international studies have shown that when smoking is banned in workplaces, consumption by smokers over 24 hours is reduced by about 20%. When smokers cannot smoke in particular settings, they smoke less cigarettes. When less cigarettes are smoked, less cigarettes are available to be dropped on the ground and less disease is caused as well.

Reducing the prevalence of smoking would do more than any other strategy to reduce butt pollution. In the 1960s, nearly 70% of Australian men and around 30% of women smoked. Today, just over 17% smoke everyday. The only people who discard butts are smokers. There are 30% of Australian adults today who used to discard butts and now never do, because they are ex-smokers. Effective tobacco control reduces both the number of smokers in the community and the amount of cigarettes smoked per day by continuing smokers. It controls butt littering at source, because it reduces the number of "sources" who each have on average some 6200 butts to dispose of each year.

Trying to persuade smokers to be more considerate, and law enforcement of anti-littering provisions, are two important components of butt reduction efforts. But they are minor, band-aid contributors to the problem at large. BAT has a naked conflict of interest in addressing the litter question. The Butt Littering Trust directors are either willing or naively unwitting allies in this sham.

* Simon Chapman is Professor of Public Health, University of Sydney; editor of Tobacco Control journal; and ASH Australia board member.