Member

To come to the environmental point, in comparing Amendments 33 and 34, “biodegradable” is such a magic, nice, green-sounding word—but that means biodegradable, depending on the conditions, over between two and 14 years. This is still litter. We can well imagine that people, having received the message that the filters in their cigarettes are biodegradable, might be more inclined to litter cigarette butts. They are still going to be out there providing a threat to the environment and the nasty picture we all see of the litter on our streets. Cigarette butts are 66% of all littered items in the UK. If we did not have filters, they would still be litter, but they would be much more biodegradable.