Denver is demanding that some of the biggest tobacco companies in the world pay for the cleanup of discarded cigarette butts on its streets, following a similar campaign that cities in other states have pursued.

Denver’s lawsuit, filed this week in a district court, claimed that taxpayers should not have to bear the financial burden for damage to city-owned and maintained property, including infrastructure, stormwater systems and waterways, caused — according to the city — by cigarette filters.

Named as defendants are Philip Morris USA Inc., Altria Group Inc., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Reynolds American Inc., Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company Inc., British American PLC, ITC Brands LLC, Liggett Group LLC, Liggett Vector Brands LLC and Peerless Products LLC.

“It’s past time Big Tobacco cleaned up the big mess it’s created,” Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said in an email to The Denver Gazette. “The tobacco industry has known for decades that cigarettes pollute streets and clog drains, but still refuses to make basic changes to protect our environment and waterways. If common decency won’t compel them to do so, then maybe a court order will.”

The Denver Gazette reached out to Philip Morris for comment, but a response was not returned by press time.

Philip Morris USA and some of the tobacco companies named in the Denver lawsuit faced a similar lawsuit out of Baltimore, and it’s plausible they would raise similar arguments here.

In the Maryland case, the tobacco companies called Baltimore’s argument “surprising.”

“No one has ever alleged that cigarette manufacturers and distributors could be liable because some of their customers occasionally fail to properly throw away their cigarette butts,” the companies argued.

The companies also said Baltimore’s logic is “untenable,” particularly when extended to other products.

“The claim becomes extraordinary once it is extended, as it would be, beyond cigarettes,” Philip Morris USA and others said. “If the City is right, every manufacturer and distributor of littered products — paper receipts, plastic bags, glass bottles, aluminum cans, and many others — would suddenly face civil and even criminal liability because consumers sometimes improperly discard them.”

“That is not simply (as the City admits) a novel theory of liability. It is an untenable one that would yield absurd results,” the defendants added.

In the legal filing, Denver officials said they are not seeking to recover for smoking-related disease, addiction or healthcare expenditures, but they are seeking money for costs associated with repairing, maintaining and preserving infrastructure, such as stormwater systems and waterways, damaged by the cigarette filters.

Denver said it also wants cigarette companies to take responsibility for the ongoing “harm” caused by the product’s design, adding that tobacco officials have known of the material’s environmental impact for years. Cellulose acetate, the commonly used material for cigarette filters, is not biodegradable and some experts say it can leach microplastics into water and the environment.

The “harm” referred to by the city refers to its “governmental, proprietary, and property interests and are separate and distinct from any personal injuries or healthcare costs allegedly sustained by individual smokers or members of the general public,” the lawsuit noted.

The city also alleged that the tobacco companies are in violation of public nuisance, trespass, negligence and product liability laws.

“Each sale and distribution of filtered cigarette products within Denver foreseeably results in additional cigarette filter waste being deposited upon municipal property, and each day that such persistent plastic waste remains upon plaintiff’s property constitutes a continuing interference with plaintiff’s property rights and public resources,” Denver said in its 72-page complaint.

A spokesperson for Johnston’s office told The Denver Gazette that the city’s primary costs associated with cigarette waste come from the time parks and recreation workers spend daily cleaning up city properties, as well as sweeping streets.

Each park’s maintenance team spends an average of two to three hours a day cleaning up the parks, seven days a week. While cigarette waste is not the only thing workers pick up, city officials said they are “definitely a part of it.”

“Of course, the biggest cost is that the cigarette butts get into the storm drains and then the waterways,” the city spokesperson said. “That’s an entirely different type of cost.” 

An estimated 13 million packs of cigarettes were sold in Denver in 2025, according to the Colorado Department of Revenue.

Local health groups estimate that as many as 100,000 smokers live in Denver.

Because a city ordinance prohibits littering within park facilities, Denver claimed it “must devote personnel, equipment and financial resources to enforcing those protections and removing cigarette-filter waste from parks and recreational property.”

City officials also argued that discarded cigarette filters routinely accumulate in those locations, requiring recurring street sweeping, litter collection, inspection, maintenance, removal, transportation and disposal operations.

Two other cities, Baltimore and Sacramento, have filed similar legal actions.

While Denver’s lawsuit does not quantify a specific dollar amount, Baltimore, which filed its lawsuit in 2022, estimated its cleanup costs to remove cigarette litter from city streets at nearly $5 million per year, as reported by the Maryland Daily Record.

In that case, Baltimore also targeted the companies’ use of cellulose acetate in filters, calling them nonbiodegradable and thus permanently littering the ground and causing other harms.

The tobacco companies countered that Baltimore, in effect, claimed that the defendants are liable for litter “caused by other, unrelated parties,” who improperly disposed of the cigarette butts.

They additionally argued that federal law preempted what Baltimore sought to accomplish via litigation.

In particular, the companies said, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009 “forbids states and localities from establishing additional requirements relating to tobacco product standards, including provisions relating to their component filters.”

Additionally, the companies said they cannot be held liable for “an alleged public nuisance that they did not create and in which they did not participate.”

“The product in question allegedly causes harm only when improperly discarded, even though neither manufacturer nor distributors have control over the product at that point,” they said, noting that Baltimore had not alleged that the defendants themselves have disposed of or dumped litter on public or private properties.

But the defendants clearly do not have the power or the right to control whether third parties break the law, they added.

Along with recovering all past city costs associated with the investigation, collection and disposal of cigarette filters, Denver is asking the defendants to cover the costs of the lawsuit as well as attorney fees.