Santa Cruz County to ban the sale of filtered cigarettes

October 10, 2024     Center for Tobacco and the Environment

The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to ban the sale of filtered tobacco products in unincorporated areas of Santa Cruz County on Tuesday, October 8, 2024. About half of Santa Cruz County’s population lives in these unincorporated areas. If approved after the second reading on October 29, the ordinance will require tobacco retailers to stop selling filtered cigarettes by January 1, 2027.

Cigarette filters are the most-littered tobacco product in the world. “We still have 12.5 billion cigarette filters sold in California every year,” said Dr. Thomas E. Novotny, co-director of the Center for Tobacco and the Environment at San Diego State University, during the county meeting. “A lot of those end up in the environment.”

“In addition to adding microplastics to the environment, hazardous chemicals from tobacco smoke that are trapped in the filters leach into water and soil,” said Dr. Georg E. Matt, fellow co-director of the Center for Tobacco and the Environment.  “Cigarette filters have no health benefits to smokers, they just make it easier to get people addicted and keep them addicted.”

Many people believe that cigarette filters are made of biodegradable materials, Board of Supervisors Chair Justin Cummings said during the county meeting. In reality, filters are made of plastic that breaks down into microplastics that stay in the environment for years. Recent research has even found microplastics in people’s bodies, Cummings said, adding that cigarette butts also contain many harmful chemicals. “It’s really important we’re addressing it as a form of pollution.”

Local business owners expressed their concern about financial loss due to the ban. However, Cummings said that the Board does not expect the ban to significantly reduce sales tax revenue. Looking back at the County’s 2019 flavored tobacco ban’s impact, sales tax dropped about 3%, but quickly rose to double-digit increases.

The ordinance also gives business owners until 2027 to adjust to the ban, Supervisor Manu Koenig said during the county meeting, as well as allows businesses to sell other tobacco products, such as nicotine pouches and unfiltered cigarettes. Between the grace period and allowance of other tobacco products, both people who smoke and people who sell filtered cigarettes have time to make necessary changes.

All county jurisdictions have passed resolutions naming tobacco product waste a public health and environmental threat, Koenig said. Since May 2023, the Board’s Tobacco Waste Ad Hoc Subcommittee has worked with local jurisdictions to educate and promote tobacco product waste prevention. The Subcommittee has received support from the community.

Santa Cruz can lead the way for other communities by implementing the ban, Novotny said. In addition, the Center for Tobacco and the Environment’s economic model estimates that the incorporated City of Santa Cruz, which makes up only 16 square miles of the County, currently spends about $2 million on tobacco product waste clean ups annually. The cost is likely much higher for the entire County, which is about 440 square miles. Banning the sale of single use plastic filters could help reduce these financial and labor costs.

Beyond saving money on clean ups, this type of tobacco product sales regulation would be the most effective way to reduce tobacco product waste, Novotny said. People collecting, cleaning up, and/or recycling cigarettes cannot keep up with the massive number of cigarette butts thrown out. An upstream ban like the filtered cigarette ordinance will prevent much of this waste from getting in the environment in the first place.

“We’re really getting at the root of the problem,” Koenig said during the county meeting, “which is the waste that comes from every single smoke.”

By banning the sale of filtered cigarettes, the Board hopes to reduce tobacco product waste in the environment and to further reduce tobacco use by the citizens of Santa Cruz County.