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Context:
The UN Environment Assembly adopted a resolution in March 2022 to begin negotiations on aninternational legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution, aiming to address the full life cycle ofplastic, including production, design and disposal. From 13-19 November, INC-3 will take place in
Nairobi, Kenya.
Addressee:

Dear delegate,
We Japan Society for Tobacco Control, a member of the Stop Tobacco Pollution Alliance, call on you,as you negotiate the UN Plastics Treaty, to include an immediate ban on cigarette butts as a key
solution to protect human health and the environment. The cigarette kills not only up to half its
consumers, but causes an enormous impact on our environment.
Cigarette butts comprise 5-9% of aquatic trash and are the most littered items in the planet with 4.5
trillion littered annually Cigarette filters, from which cigarette butts are derived, do not reduce
tobacco harms and are deemed a deceptive deadly design feature; gives smokers a false impressionof safety, when in fact, cigarette filters have been associated with a more aggressive forms of lungcancer.1
In addition to emitting thousands of microplastic fibers, cigarette butts emit high levels of chemicals
and heavy metals that ; easily contaminating soil and water, and killing even the most resilient aquatic
microorganisms and animals.
In its submission for INC-3, ‘WHO supports the immediate ban of plastics in nicotine and tobacco
products and where immediate ban is not feasible, a gradual phase out or stringent control of plastics
present in tobacco products, electronic delivery systems, and packaging, recognizing them asproblematic and avoidable plastics under the treaty.’ WHO refers in its submission to the report ofthe Belgian Superior Health Council which gives a scientific basis to ban cigarette filters.
Japan ratified the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHOFCTC) which provides obligations and guidance for governments to counter tobacco industry tactics

1

caused by changes in the toxicants during combustion, increased inhalation of tobacco smoke and plastic

fibres falling out of the end of the filter.

with evidence-based tobacco control measures. The WHO FCTC recognizes that the tobacco productis unique in nature, i.e., it kills up to half of its users while providing no health benefit, they are subject
to a set of distinct rules, and thus, tobacco would arguably deserve a specific consideration in the Zero
Draft of the Plastics Treaty. We Japan Society for Tobacco Control call you to consider these issues
while discussing the Zero Draft:
1. Cigarette filters are avoidable and problematic plastics that should be immediately banned
2. Tobacco industry’s redesigning of cigarette filters and recycling of cigarette butts cannot be partof a circular economy
3. Cigarette butts should be classified as hazardous plastic waste that requires special handling,taking into account the chemicals of concern that are attached to the filters.
4. Any cigarette filter alternatives or substitutes will remain hazardous and the redesign of cigarette
filters could promote tobacco use
5. The Tobacco Industry should not be treated as a “stakeholder” or “responsible producer” butshould be made to pay for the pollution.

We call upon you to support the introduction of an immediate ban on cigarette filters as one of themost avoidable problematic, and hazardous of all plastics (Annex B).
Please do not hesitate to contact us for any additional information,
Kind regards,
2023/10/31
Manabu Sakuta, Chairman of the Japan Society for Tobacco Control