Tobacco companies are to pay part of Ireland's street cleaning bills from tomorrow under new government legislation.
But this must not become an exercise in greenwashing, that's the message from a anti-smoking group.
In 2021 85 million euro was spent by local authorities on street cleaning with cigarettes butts accounting for half of all litter.
Director General of the Tobacco Free Research Institute Ireland, Professor Luke Clancy, says the Tobacco industry should have no hand in this new initiative:
"The first country, I think, to do it was, probably, France. The industry turned it around and made it an opportunity for greenwashing. An evil industry, who kills so many people, for instance in Europe about 700,000, and in this country 6,000 a year, and they kind of painted themselves as protectors of the environment".
