Seeing them all there certainly gives you a sense of the gravity of the thing, but probably not the extent of the damage: we find butts everywhere, even on the beach, where they are the most found waste after plastic fragments (which remain the undisputed sad queen, 61,785 of them collected).
On our beaches, in fact, in 12 years of monitoring, 50,053 cigarette butts were collected in 653 transects along the beaches, with an average of 77 “butts” every 100 linear meters of beach. The data is revealed by Legambiente which, in view of the National Sea Day on 11 April, presents the Beach Litter survey and the great mobilization of “Clean Beaches and Seabeds 2026”, starting from 10 to 12 April throughout the Peninsula with over 80 cleaning activities in 16 regions.
In all this there is also some good news: 18 anti-smoking ordinances have been registered on the seafront, beaches and shorelines of various municipalities.
The report
From 2014 to 2026, 50,053 cigarette butts were collected and cataloged by Legambiente in 653 transects, an average of 77 “butts” every 100 linear meters of beach. Data that gives cigarette butts second place in the ranking among the materials most found on the beaches, after plastic fragments which are in first place, 61,785 were collected. Furthermore, cigarette butts constitute 87% of the 57,099 “smoking waste” (which also includes lighters, cigarette packets or tobacco boxes or paper cigarettes) found in recent years.
A silent emergency resulting from a serious act of incivility and the lack of effective policies and controls, despite the fact that in Italy the Environmental Link to the 2014 stability law (Law 221/2015) provides for fines of 30 to 300 euros for those who leave cigarette butts on the ground, in water and in drains.
To this worrying picture, we also add that relating to all waste of every type (including butts) collected and monitored over 12 years and which amount to 512,934 waste of which 80% is plastic (an average of 785 waste every 100 linear metres).
A problem which, in any case, does not spare even the European coasts and those of the rest of the world. According to the Digital Report study of the Marine LitterWatch of the European Environment Agency, published on 17 March 2026 (data collected from 2013 to 2024), butts are the most abundant waste in monitoring on the Baltic (11.6% of all waste), on the Black Sea (38.4%) and in second place on the beaches of the north-eastern Atlantic Ocean (10.3%, after plastic fragments with 12.2%).
It goes without saying that the abandonment of cigarette butts on the beach or in the sea, as well as waste, also represents a threat to biodiversity and to various species at risk. In Italy, among those most at risk are, for example, the turtle Caretta caretta and the plover (Anarhynchus alexandrinus). The first, at the center of the LIFE Turtlenest project, is increasingly nesting on the Italian coasts thanks to the increase in temperatures. The second is a small bird symbol of the dune ecosystem which in this period nests on the natural beaches of the Adriatic, Tyrrhenian, Ionian, Sardinian and Sicilian coasts, and at the center of the new European LIFE Alexandro project, co-financed by the LIFE Program of the European Union.
The infringement procedure
What we should keep in mind is that Italy is currently subjected to an infringement procedure (2052/2024) connected to the European SUP Directive and among the discrepancies found by the European Commission there is also that concerning the correct application of the principle of extended producer responsibility, the so-called EPR TOBACCO.
In Italy, three years after the entry into force of the directive, the mandatory extended producer responsibility scheme envisaged by the SUP Directive and which requires tobacco producers to cover the costs of the infrastructure necessary for collection (purchase and installation of bins), cleaning, management and awareness raising has not yet been defined and made official. To date, in Italy – unlike other European countries where EPR tobacco has started, as in France, or where there are the foundations to start, as in Germany, Spain and Sweden for example – there are only voluntary initiatives, such as the one carried out by the ERION CARE consortium. What is missing in the Peninsula – reports Legambiente – is an implementing legal instrument (such as a decree or other binding regulatory act) from the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security to make the tobacco EPR fully operational. This is why the environmental association asks the Minister of the Environment to intervene as soon as possible.
The good news
Anti-smoking ordinances on the seafront and on the shoreline are growing in the municipal areas of the Peninsula. I am 18 those “recorded” by Legambiente: the last in order of arrival is that of the municipality of Pesarowhich expanded the application area.
Anti-smoking ordinances have also been issued in recent years in:
According to what Legambiente says, Rome is also preparing to ban smoking, including electronic cigarettes, on the beaches of the Capitoline coast. In fact, as early as summer 2026, in Ostia, Castel Porziano and Capocotta there could be a crackdown on the possibility of smoking on the beach.
