Swimmers bathing among cigarette stubs, warns MP in call for plastic butts ban

A ban on plastic cigarette filters could prevent swimmers from bathing among “grim” butts, a Conservative former minister has said.

Dame Caroline Dinenage proposed the ban as an amendment to the Government’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill, in an effort to improve the cleanliness of waterways and save council taxpayers’ money.

“We have spoken at length for many years about the impact of sewage in the waterways, but we now need to talk about the impact of plastic,” Dame Caroline told the Commons.

Her proposed amendment, which had received backing from Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green Party MPs, would ban shops from selling plastic cigarette filters – both as standalone products and as part of ready-made cigarettes.

MPs rejected the proposal 304 votes to 137, a majority of 167.

The MP for Gosport in Hampshire said: “Banning plastic filters will do absolutely nothing for public health.

“It will make a great deal of difference, though, to the thousands of my constituents who bathe or swim in The Solent or for the marine life that live there, too.”

Around 66% of all littered items are cigarette butts, according to the charity Keep Britain Tidy.

Dame Caroline said this was “litter that we are all paying to clean up”, when councils collect dropped waste.

She added: “This is pretty grim but bearing in mind that cigarette stubs can take around 14 years to degrade in the marine environment, swimming around Stokes Bay at the end of my road among little pieces of discoloured plastic is obviously unpleasant.

“But the bigger threat is to the environment.”

Dame Caroline warned that studies have shown cigarette butts when they break down are “toxic or very toxic to marine life”.

She added that marine ecosystems such as The Solent which lines her constituency are “precious” – supporting both tourism and nature-based solutions to flooding.

The MP said smokers can already buy biodegradable filters and “other large companies have already demonstrated it’s easy to make a switch in production that would be required to accommodate this change in the law”.

She added that “unlike” paper straws, used in place of plastic straws, “these biodegradable filters work and make no discernible difference to the user experience”.

Labour MP Jim Dickson tabled an amendment which would “introduce a ban on all filters, regardless of whether they contain plastic”.

The Dartford MP said he understood Dame Caroline’s “environmental motivations” but added: “I worry that that isn’t sufficient to address environmental concerns and can even have a damaging impact on public health.”

Mr Dickson argued an outright ban would protect smokers from “the deadliest fraud in the history of human civilisation” and incentivise quitting.

Health minister Ashley Dalton said Dame Caroline’s proposal “could lead to greenwashing, improving the reputation of tobacco manufacturers whilst not necessarily improving environmental outcomes”.

The Conservative MP intervened and said: ‘Greenwashing’ is just semantics.

“We care about cleaning up our beaches, cleaning up our streets and reducing the cost to local councils of cleaning up litter.”

Ms Dalton went on to say “there are already powers available to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) which enable the Government to limit the damage to the environment caused by filters, and so therefore these amendments are unnecessary”.

Responding to Mr Dickson, Ms Dalton said: “We believe the best way to tackle filters is through the reduction of smoking rates.”