Cigarette filters, the most commonly littered item worldwide, are one of the main sources of marine pollution. However, reducing cigarette littering is a serious challenge for policy makers and environmental authorities: traditional instruments like bans and fines are generally ineffective. In this article, we evaluate the impact of two interventions aimed at reducing smokers’ littering in public areas, like beaches. We run a field experiment at eight beach resorts in the north east coast of Italy. Resorts were randomly assigned to three groups: in the first, we introduced portable ashtrays to test whether smokers respond to the lower effort costs (time plus inconvenience) by disposing of litter properly. In the second set, we added a social cue. The third group of resorts was used as a control with no intervention. Results suggest that reducing the private costs of a proper disposal through mobile ashtrays significantly affects littering, leading to a reduction of 10–12% in the number of cigarette filters dropped in the sand compared to beaches with no ashtrays. Reinforcing this measure with social prompts does not significantly increase the impact driven by the introduction of mobile ashtrays.

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“海滩上的烟雾”：关于使用经济与行为政策来减少香烟乱扔造成的环境污染

香烟过滤嘴是世界上最常见的垃圾，也是海洋污染的主要来源之一。然而，减少香烟乱扔垃圾对政策制定者和环境当局来说是一个严峻的挑战：禁令和罚款等传统手段通常是无效的。在本文中，我们评估了旨在减少吸烟者在海滩等公共场所乱扔垃圾的两项干预措施的影响。我们在意大利东北海岸的八个海滩度假村进行了实地试验。度假村被随机分配到三组：首先，我们引入了便携式烟灰缸，以测试吸烟者是否通过正确处理垃圾来应对较低的努力成本（时间加上不便）。在第二组中，我们添加了社交提示。第三组度假村被用作没有干预的对照。结果表明，通过移动烟灰缸减少适当处置的私人成本会显着影响乱扔垃圾，与没有烟灰缸的海滩相比，掉在沙滩上的香烟过滤嘴数量减少了 10-12%。通过社交提示加强这一措施并不会显着增加移动烟灰缸的引入所带来的影响。