Cigarette butts make up half of all litter
Image via Pexels.comTobacco companies are to pay part of Ireland's street cleaning bills from tomorrow.
It comes under new government legislation.
Local authorities pay up to 85 million euro annually on street cleaning - with cigarettes butts accounting for half of all litter.
But anti-smoking groups are warning it shouldn't become an exercise in greenwashing.
Professor Luke Clancy is the Director General of the Tobacco free Research Institute Ireland.
He says the public shouldn't think the Tobacco industry is environmentally friendly by paying for the clean-up.
"The first country to do it I think was probably France.
"The industry turned it around and made it an opportunity for green washing and an evil industry who kills so any people for instance in Europe about 700,000 and in this country 6,000 a year.
"And they kind of painted themselves as the protectors of the environment."
