In Bilbao, coinciding with World No Tobacco Day, several organizations –Nasti de Plastic Bizkaia, Ola sin Plástico, Mi Pueblo Limpio, and Fridays for Future– held a campaign near the Gran Vía to raise awareness about the health effects of tobacco and the environmental impact of cigarette butts. Activists denounced that cigarette butts are thrown on the ground «with impunity», despite being waste containing over 7,000 toxic substances.
Cigarette butts, made of cellulose acetate, take over a decade to decompose and pollute the environment. They contain heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, and ammonia. These toxic substances enter ecosystems, are ingested by birds and fish, and nicotine can contaminate up to a thousand liters of water.
In the first phase of the action, a section of the Gran Vía was closed off, between the Moyua roundabout and the Foral Palace. Thousands of collected cigarette butts and tobacco packs were displayed. Subsequently, they marked the cigarette butts found on the ground with chalk and collected them. In total, seven people gathered 2,000 cigarette butts in 35 minutes.
Tobacco doesn't just kill you
Nuria Atienza, spokesperson for Nasti de Plastic, stated that only two fines have been issued in Bilbao for discarding cigarette butts on the ground between 2020 and 2022, despite a 1995 ordinance that allows for such penalties. Atienza denounced the «total institutional impunity» and recalled that each cigarette butt can contaminate up to a thousand liters of water.
Approximately 120 million cigarette butts are discarded on the ground annually in Bilbao, accounting for 1% of the waste collected from public streets. Atienza emphasized that the issue lies not with a lack of ashtrays or cleaning, but with «citizen consciousness».
