Department of Public Health, California State University, East Bay, 25800 Carlos Bee Blvd, Hayward, CA, United States of America (USA).
Avalon Health Economics, Morristown, USA.
Bull World Health Organ. 2022 Oct 1;100(10):620-627. doi: 10.2471/BLT.22.288344. Epub 2022 Aug 22.
Tobacco smoking continues to cause considerable premature mortality and morbidity worldwide. Most of the approximately six trillion cigarettes sold globally each year are discarded improperly as toxic environmental waste. Tobacco product waste, including cigarette butts, is the most commonly collected waste item worldwide. Of particular concern is the cellulose acetate filter, a poorly degradable plastic additive attached to most commercially manufactured cigarettes. This filter was introduced by the tobacco industry to reduce smokers' perception of harm and risk but it has no health benefit. To inform health policy and practice and improve public health outcomes, governments and society can benefit from cost estimates of preventing, properly disposing of and/or cleaning up tobacco product waste. Estimating the costs of tobacco product waste to communities and responsible authorities could encourage the development of health, environmental and fiscal policy interventions and shift accountability for the costs of tobacco product waste onto the global tobacco industry. To support health and environmental policy-making, we therefore propose an empirical approach to estimate the economic costs of tobacco product waste based on its negative environmental externalities. We first present general estimates for six representative countries and then identify data gaps that need to be addressed to develop global estimates. Interventions against tobacco product waste may be new channels to regulate tobacco products across sectors - for example, health, environment and finance - and consequently reduce overall tobacco use.
全球范围内，烟草使用仍在导致大量过早死亡和发病。每年全球售出的约 6 万亿支香烟中，大部分被不当丢弃，成为有毒的环境废物。烟草制品废物，包括烟头，是全球最常收集的废物。尤其值得关注的是醋酸纤维素滤嘴，它是一种难以降解的塑料添加剂，附着在大多数商业制造的香烟上。烟草业引入这种滤嘴是为了降低吸烟者对危害和风险的感知，但它对健康没有好处。为了为卫生政策和实践提供信息并改善公共卫生结果，政府和社会可以从预防、妥善处理和/或清理烟草制品废物的成本估计中受益。估计烟草制品废物对社区和责任当局的成本，可以鼓励制定卫生、环境和财政政策干预措施，并将烟草制品废物的成本责任转移到全球烟草业身上。为了支持卫生和环境政策制定，因此我们提出了一种基于其负面环境外部性来估算烟草制品废物经济成本的实证方法。我们首先给出了六个代表性国家的一般估计值，然后确定了需要解决的数据差距，以制定全球估计值。针对烟草制品废物的干预措施可能是跨部门（例如，卫生、环境和金融）监管烟草制品的新渠道，从而减少总体烟草使用。
