When you are out and having a smoke in a public place, it is forbidden for you to throw the cigarette butt on the ground. In Trondheim and Oslo, for example, throwing cigarette butts is considered the same as urinating in public. In theory, you can therefore be punished with a fine for this in Norway. In Denmark and the rest of the EU, they have now decided that it is the people who make the cigarettes who will bear the cost of the contamination with cigarette butts. From January 2023, the Danish producers must come together and pay for the municipalities to pick up the stumps. The following year it will be like that in Norway as well. – Not on the taxpayers’ bill News from the neighboring country in the south came last week. Then Danmarks Radio said that every year the producers must pay a bill of a total of 32 million Danish kroner to the municipalities. – Today it is the authorities and volunteers who clean up nature and make sure that the rubbish ends up where it should. I think that is completely wrong. It is not the taxpayers and volunteers who have to pick up the bill. The producers must take it, says Ingrid Liland, deputy director of MDG. Deputy manager of MDG Ingrid Liland believes that rules must be made which will ensure that less plastic and other rubbish is left lying around in nature. Photo: Nicklas Knudsen / Nicklas Knudsen Cigarette butts contain around 90 per cent plastic, according to the Nature Conservancy. Earlier this year, the World Health Organization highlighted the fact that tobacco not only harms the individual smoker – but also the planet. In a report from May, it appears that we throw away 4.5 trillion cigarette butts every year on a global basis. In two years, those who sell the sticks will have to pay for the clean-up in Norway as well. At the Tobacco Industry Joint Office (TIF), they take it all with crushing calm. On a global basis, we probably throw away 4.5 trillion cigarette butts every year. Photo: Kirsti Kringstad / news – This is completely unproblematic. It will cost a lot for the producers to clean up, and that’s perfectly fine, says adviser Jan Robert Kvam. What about snuff? There are almost twice as many Norwegians who snuff than smoke. This is shown by figures from the Directorate of Health from 2021. Smoking and sniffing in Norway Around 360,000 Norwegians between the ages of 16 and 74 smoke daily. That is approximately 8 percent of the population. There are slightly more women than men who smoke. Around 1 per cent of young people under 24 smoke. Around 670,000 Norwegians between the ages of 16 and 74 use snuff every day. That is approximately 15 per cent of the population. The proportion of snus users has doubled in ten years. More men than women snuff. Trøndelag has the most snuff users – around 17 per cent of Trøndelag snuffers every day. Source: Norwegian Directorate of Health There is also microplastic in snuff. But snuff is not covered by the new EU rules that will come in during 2025. Then the producers of all packaging and some single-use plastics will have to pay for cleaning up their products. The reason why snuff is not on the EU’s list is that the rules are based on the types of rubbish found along beaches in Europe. That’s what Aleksander Øren Heen (Sp) says in the Ministry of Climate and Environment. – But snus is popular, and a source of plastic pollution in Norway. In the future, we will therefore consider measures for this product as well. Liland from MDG wants it to be in place quickly. – It is a natural next step. There is no reason for Norway to sit and wait for the EU, she says. From the lower lip to the hiking trail. This snuff is thrown away by a snuffer in Jotunheimen. Photo: even lusæter Snipe fine You can therefore, in theory, be fined for throwing a snipe or other rubbish on the street, although according to the police there is no fixed fine rate. news has asked the police in Trondheim how many times they have issued fines to someone who has thrown snot on the ground. The answer? They cannot find a single case. Ingrid Liland in MDG believes that it is basically every Norwegian’s responsibility to put the rubbish where it belongs. – But it doesn’t work. I think we are pretty much in agreement that we should not use the police to go after people and pick up their rubbish. Then we have to place the responsibility where a change can actually take place. And it is with the producers, she says.
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Now the tobacco industry will soon pay for us to throw away the stumps – news Trøndelag
