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TOBACCO EDUCATION AND RESEARCH OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE (TEROC)

Achieving Health Equity: Toward a Commercial Tobacco-Free California, 2021-2022

Objective 5: Minimize the secondary effects of tobacco and cannabis on people and the environment

For decades, governments have educated the public on the dangers associated with improperly discarded cigarette butts. The human, economic, and environmental toll of wildfires caused by discarded butts can be immense. Other dangers associated with tobacco waste are less widely understood but no less important. Cigarette butts, e-cigarette pods, and other types of tobacco product waste (TPW) are nonbiodegradable and contain many dangerous chemicals, making them a scourge on the environment. Upstream solutions to this problem, reducing waste at the source by limiting consumption, are needed to stem the flow of discarded products and components into communities before they can harm the environment.

Great progress has been made in recent years to protect California residents from secondhand smoke exposure. Yet loopholes in clean air laws remain, creating hazardous living and working conditions for many Californians. 

Image collection of discarded tobacco buds

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One Page Summary of Objective 5: Minimize the secondary effects of tobacco and cannabis on people and the environment, 2021 (PDF) 
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The full Achieving Health Equity: Toward a Commercial Tobacco-Free California, 2021-2022 Plan,  (PDF)

 

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Achieving Health Equity also includes objectives on the following topics. Click on the links to learn more:

1 - Reducing Disparities

2 - Strengthening Capacity

3 - Overlap of Tobacco and Cannabis

4 - Youth and Young Adults

5 - Effects on People and Environment

6 - Cessation

7 - Countering the Industry

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Featured Story

Cigarette butts accounted for 37 percent of the beach litter collected on California Coastal Cleanup Days from 1988 to 2017.62 Despite progress in making beaches smoke-free, cigarette butts remain the most prevalent form of litter on the California coast.63 The San Francisco Estuary Institute developed a standardized approach for tracking tobacco waste and e-waste bound for California's waterways. The method is designed to allow people to monitor the amount and types of waste collected or not collected by conventional trash management, using practical and innovative techniques including drone surveillance. Tobacco control programs can apply the methodology to quantify the amount of TPW in their local areas.


Individual using video drone surveillance


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4. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health Consequences of Smoking--50 Years of Progress. A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health; 2014.

60. Schneider JE, Scheibling CM, Peterson NA, Granados PS, Fulton L, Novotny TE. Online simulation model to estimate the total costs of tobacco product waste in large U.S. cities. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17(13). doi:10.3390/ijerph17134705.

62. California Coastal Commission. California Coastal Cleanup Day History. 2018; (https://www.coastal.ca.gov/publiced/ccd/history.html).

63. Ocean Conservancy. Together, We Are Team Ocean: 2020 Report.  September 2020.

64. Novotny TE, Slaughter E. Tobacco product waste: An environmental approach to reduce tobacco consumption. Curr Environ Health Rep. 2014;1:208-216. doi:10.1007/s40572-014-0016-x.

65. Public Health Law Center. Tobacco Product Waste: Frequently Asked Questions.  August 2020.

66. Becker R. Why a California lawmaker wants to ban cigarette filters and disposable vapes. CalMatters. June 25, 2019.

67. California Constitution Article XIII C, Ā§2(d).

68. Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. U.S. racketeering verdict: Big Tobacco guilty as charged. 2018; (https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/what-we-do/industry-watch/doj). Accessed December 30, 2020.

70. California Labor Code, Ā§6464.5.

71. Online California Adult Tobacco Survey, 2016 to 2018. Sacramento, CA: California Department of Public Health;  2019.

72. Prochaska JJ, Watts MH, Zellers L, et al. Inequity in California's smokefree workplace laws: A legal epidemiologic analysis of loophole closures. Am J Prev Med. 2020;58(3):e71-e78. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2019.10.011.

73. Syamlal G, King BA, Mazurek JM. Tobacco product use among workers in the construction industry, United States, 2014-2016. Am J Ind Med. 2018;61(11):939-951. doi:10.1002/ajim.22907.

74. California Public Resources Code, Ā§5008.10.

75. Wilson KM, Klein JD, Blumkin AK, Gottlieb M, Winickoff JP. Tobacco-smoke exposure in children who live in multiunit housing. Pediatrics. 2011;127(1):85-92. doi:10.1542/peds.2010-2046.

76. California Civil Code, Ā§1947.52020.

77. California Air Resources Board. California identifies secondhand smoke as a "toxic air contaminant." 2006; (https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/es/news/california-identifies-secondhand-smoke-toxic-air-contaminant). Accessed August 18, 2020.

78. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health; 2006.


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