Dear Member of Parliament,
Tomorrow, following the Spring Statement will be the Report Stage of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. Our team at parliamentnews.co.uk are supporting amendment NC2, proposed by Dame Caroline Dinenage and supported by a cross party group of MPs, which will ban the supply of plastic cigarette filters and force the tobacco companies to move to biodegradable alternatives.
We are supporting this amendment because:
1. Cigarette butts are currently made of cellulose acetate – a synthetic plastic;
2. Each cigarette butt contains around two straws worth of plastic;
3. Globally around 6 trillion cigarettes are smoked each year, with 4.5 trillion butts being littered;
4. Even in the UK, around 3.9 million cigarette butts are littered daily;
5. That is equivalent to 6,000 cigarette butts being dropped in every parliamentary constituency;
6. These butts damage the environment, harm wildlife and are costly to clean up;
7. Each plastic butt can take up to 10 years to breakdown into tiny fragments or microplastics;
8. Microplastics have polluted the entire planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans;
9. People consume the tiny particles via food, water and by breathing them in;
10. Worryingly, according to recent scientific research the level of microplastics being found in human brain tissue samples has increased by 50 per cent since 2016 and is increasing in other organs; (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00405-8#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20microplastic%20levels%20were,a%20person’s%20liver%20and%20kidneys.)
Put simply, plastic cigarette butts are bad for the environment, wildlife and humans!
But there is an alternative, non-plastic cigarette butts that conform to ISO biodegradability standards and deliver the same level of filtration. Astonishingly these have been around for a number of years, but no major tobacco company has made the switch, because it would means changing some of their equipment. This is why we need legislation to force the tobacco companies to make this change and why we are asking you to support Amendment NC2 during the report stage of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill tomorrow.
Best wishes,
The Parliament News Team
A last minute message to MPs
