Next week's global conference on tobacco control will consider what to do about the sheer volume of cigarette butts trashing the planet, with some recommending banning them completely.

"The best thing that we could see for the environment is getting rid of filters altogether," Andrew Black, acting head of the secretariat of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), said Thursday.

Plastic cigarette filters are the world's most littered item, leaching toxic chemicals into the environment and breaking down into microplastics -- while doing very little for the smoker, the secretariat said.

The 11th conference of the parties to the FCTC is being held in Geneva from November 17-22.

The WHO warned Wednesday that the tobacco industry was trying to infiltrate

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