Naples: Third day of awareness raising against cigarette butts with Erion Care and Plastic Free in Piazza Sanità.

On Saturday, October 10th, at 16:00 PM, Piazza Sanità will host an awareness and cleanup day to combat cigarette butt litter, promoted by Erion Care together with Plastic Free Onlus. The initiative, now in its third year in Naples after Milan and Montesilvano, invites citizens and associations to participate in an information session followed by collection and cleanup activities.

The day will include a brief information session on the environmental impact of discarded cigarette butts, followed by a waste collection session. The collected items will be weighed and catalogued to show the results. Erion Care-branded informational materials and Plastic Free-branded merchandise will be distributed.

The goal is to combat one of the most widespread forms of pollution: tobacco product filters, which contain plastic and are among the most commonly discarded single-use items in Europe, impacting ecosystems and the local environment.

Between Milan and Montesilvano, together with Plastic Free, we collected approximately 9.000 cigarette butts and numerous other unsorted waste items: a figure that clearly demonstrates the enthusiasm with which citizens respond when they are directly involved.

– Letizia Nepi, General Manager of Erion Care

These numbers confirm that participation is the most effective tool to combat the abandonment of this type of waste and build a culture of respect for the places we live in every day. With this conviction, we come to Naples, confident that the city's response will not be lacking here either.

According to a study conducted by dss+ for Erion Care, cigarette filters, primarily made of cellulose acetate, can take years to degrade; a single cigarette butt can contaminate up to 1.000 liters of water and reduce the success of seed germination and plant development. Furthermore, if ingested by animals, they can cause suffocation and poisoning. Despite the environmental impact, approximately 40% of Italians are unaware of the existence of specific penalties against littering, which have recently been made more severe.

Who is involved and what changes

The day is promoted by Erion Care, the first Extended Producer Responsibility Consortium dedicated to tobacco product waste, founded in 2022 by the association of the main players in the sector (BAT, Imperial Brands, JT International, and Philip Morris). The initiative is a collaboration with Plastic Free Onlus, a volunteer organization founded in 2019 to combat plastic pollution and promote sustainable practices.