Government proposes importers pay cost of tobacco litter

The government is proposing new rules that will make tobacco companies responsible for the cost of disposing cigarette butts.

Under the draft legal notice, cigarette companies will be held financially responsible for the environmental impact of their products, a move that aligns Malta’s regulations with the European Union’s Single-Use Plastics (SUP) Directive.

Cigarette butts are a major component of litter found in beach clean-ups, accounting for 22% of waste collected from European beaches. A survey conducted by the Environment Ministry in 2021 found that 11% of smokers admit to still throwing cigarette butts on the floor.

Although cigarette filters look like cotton, 98% of cigarette filters are made of plastic fibers that are tightly packed together. Moreover, cigarette butts are non-biodegradable, meaning they won’t organically break down from living organisms. Studies show that it may take up to ten years for a cigarette butt to decompose, apart from containing chemicals and microplastics which negatively impact marine life.

The draft legal notice introduces a framework that will require producers of tobacco products with plastic filters to assume financial responsibility for the management of their waste. This legislation is designed to ensure that the costs associated with clean-up efforts, waste receptacles, and public awareness campaigns are borne by the manufacturers of these products. Tobacco companies will be required to fund the waste management of their products through a Producer Responsibility Organisation (PRO).

The PRO will fund waste management initiatives including clean-ups, the provision of adequate waste receptacles, and address litter hot spots. Tobacco companies will also be responsible for the subsequent transport and treatment of this waste.

The law will also mandate public awareness initiatives and data reporting to monitor and assess the effectiveness of the new measures.

And until a PRO is set up, it will be the Environment and Resources Authority to allocate the costs according to importers’ market share.

The new legal notice is in line with the Single Use Plastic Strategy approved four years ago, even if the deadline has been missed by a couple of years. The strategy had envisaged that by 2022, producers of tobacco had to finance the provision of ashtrays at all beaches including beach resorts. By 2023 Malta had to introduce schemes to ensure that tobacco companies are held responsible for waste management costs.

Malta’s long-term waste management plan approved in 2021 even went one step further by proposing a smoking ban on several local beaches, with the aim of limiting the amount of cigarette butts disposed of improperly and littered on beaches, but this measure still has not been implemented.