Mexico to launch campaign against cigarette littering

Mexico's Ministry of Health has announced it would launch a campaign to curb smoking and littering with cigarette butts, which pollute the environment.

The move follows a request from Mexico's Lower House for stronger measures to combat cigarette pollution, after legislators warned that a single discarded cigarette butt can pollute up to 50 liters of potable water.

The high concentration of cadmium in filters represents a health risk to the community at large, not only smokers, they said, citing a study from the Ocean Conservancy, which recommends cigarette butts be treated as hazardous waste.

On Tuesday, the ministry said it will devise a series of measures to educate smokers about the dangers of littering.

An estimated 14 million Mexicans smoke approximately 250 million packs of cigarettes a year, meaning some 50 billion cigarette butts are thrown away annually, according to the news website Siete24.

The problem is that most of these cigarette butts do not end up in the trash, but in streets, on beaches, in parks, rivers and other areas, polluting the environment, it said. Endit