Unanimous Vote Bans Cigarette Filters!

On Tuesday, October 8th, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to support an ordinance that will ban the retail sale of filtered tobacco products in unincorporated Santa Cruz County! The ordinance, commonly known as “Ban the Butt”, is set to have a final vote on October 29th, and if supported, it will make Santa Cruz the only county in the nation to ban the sale of filtered cigarettes.

This win is pivotal to the future of our beaches, water quality, and the safety of marine life. Cigarette filters are the single most identifiable litter item on our beaches, with Save Our Shores alone collecting almost 500,000 cigarette butts between 2013 and 2023. Our data shows that cigarette butts make up about a third of all plastic items collected during our cleanups.

Cigarette butts are made of cellulose acetate, a non-biodegradable plastic, which breaks into microplastics and bioaccumulates in marine organisms. They are toxic waste and leach dangerous chemicals such as lead, arsenic, and nicotine into the environment where they can poison small children, pets, wildlife, and marine life. In the 1950s, the tobacco industry claimed to have designed tobacco filters to make smoking safer, but data shows that filters have done the opposite–instead, filters have led to new types of cancer, and they absorb thousands of chemicals that are then thrown into the environment.

There have been numerous efforts to combat the problem of littered cigarette butts (such as increased enforcement for littering or smoking on beaches, or placement of cigarette butt receptacles), but none have been effective. Banning the sale of filtered cigarettes will ensure the litter is stopped at the source.

Santa Cruz County has shown leadership by passing the ordinance, and we are not stopping here. We look forward to working with the coalition of environmental and health organizations to advocate for similar ordinances at the city level within the county.

Save Our Shores is proud of our Board of Supervisors for making the right call for our beaches and our health!

To learn more, follow Save Our Shores on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Save Our Shores formed in 1978 as a grassroots movement to prevent offshore oil drilling in the Monterey Bay. In 1985, SOS advocated for the passage of 26 local ordinances to effectively prevent offshore oil drilling and in 1989 we co-founded and chaired the Conservation Working Group to advocate for the best ecological boundary for the Marine Sanctuary. The Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary was officially established in 1992.

By: Jadyn Polk