Support smoking waste pollution prevention! AB 1690 is facing significant opposition and to keep all the currently defined products (cigarette/cigar filters and tobacco and cannabis single-use vaping devices) in the bill, we need your help ASAP!

Did you know? … Filtered cigarettes cause pollution in our communities, and they are unnecessary because they don’t protect smokers’ health. Since 1964, the U.S. Surgeon General judged cigarette filters to be useless in reducing harm to the average smoker.

Over 90% of cigarette filters are made of plastic and 75% of smokers report disposing of them on the ground or out of a car window. Filters persist in the environment for decades and break down into microplastics that accumulate environmentally and biologically. Less than 9% of Californians smoke cigarettes, but cigarette filters represent 34% of total litter collected in the State. 

Meanwhile, single-use vaping devices are “disposable” by design, but because they contain a battery and toxic materials, they must be treated as hazardous waste at end-of-life after they’ve been used – but few vapers know how to dispose of these items properly, so these items often end up in the regular waste stream. 

AB 1690 will help transition California away from single-use smoking products that don’t protect public health and will help reduce pollution from these items. 

Find your representatives and their contact forms here and call and email your legislators today . Submit your own letter of support to the Health Committee. It will be heard on 3/29 and letters must be submitted by Wed, 3/23 at Noon PST. Letters are submitted via the Position Letter Portal – instructions here.
Thank you for your kind consideration of this proposed law, we hope that with your help we can keep plastic cigarette and cigar filters and disposable vaping devices in the bill.