Manchester, England - supports bid to tax tobacco giants over cigarette butts..

January 27, 2010 - Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee appointed by the House of Commons published a report call on the UK government to evaluate the practicalities of imposing a small 'clean-up' levy on the products most commonly littered like cigarettes. (United Kingdom - should tobacco companies be forced to pay for cigarette butt litter??)

The Manchester council has come out in support of this report. The council estimates it spends £1.5 million annually cleaning its streets of cigarette litter. Smokers are said to be responsible for 94 percent of all litter. Manchester city centre chief, Coun Pat Karney, is calling on the government to take on the recommendations and go further still by imposing a tax on chewing gum companies as well. He said: “I'm really keen on this. Cigarette and chewing gum litter are the bane of our lives.

“We spend a small fortune ridding Manchester city centre's streets of cigarette litter and I don't see why councils should have to spend these great amounts when the source is a multi-million pound industry. A levy is long overdue.”

According to anti-smoking charity Ash: around 200 million cigarette butts are dropped on Britain's streets each day.

Street cleaners in Greater Manchester have previously said they sweep up up to 1,000 cigarette ends an hour. Campaigners say a levy may make smokers think twice about dropping cigarette litter as well as going some way to meeting the huge clean-up cost. In 2005, Manchester introduced £50 on the spot fines for people caught dropping cigarette butts and chewing gum on the city's streets.

Earth Day 2009 promoting environmental citizenship - Tobacco A Major Culprit..

Reference: Bid to tax tobacco giants over cigarette butts,ManchesterEveningNews.co.uk, 1/26/2010.

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