The Environment

There's nothing natural about cigarettes.

We all know tobacco causes a world of health problems, but did you know cigarettes also do a lot of harm to the environment? Think about this:

Tree-Killers

  • Each year, nearly 600 million trees are destroyed to provide fuel to dry tobacco. Put another way, one tree is destroyed for every 300 cigarettes.1
  • A modern cigarette manufacturing machine uses 4 miles of paper every hour.1
  • In Africa, around 5% of all deforestation is caused by tobacco.2
  • One out of every four tobacco growing countries doesn’t have enough trees to support its fuel needs due to tobacco-related deforestation.2

Litter

  • The Ocean Conservancy compiled the results of a shoreline cleanup day conducted by volunteers in 68 countries in 2006. Of the 7.7 million items of debris collected worldwide, cigarettes and cigarette butts accounted for roughly 1.9 million.4
  • Cigarette butts are made of cellulose acetate, a form of plastic, which can take an estimated 2 to 25 years to break down.4
  • Plastic filter pieces have been found in the stomachs of fish, birds, whales and other marine creatures that mistake them as food, swallowing harmful plastic and toxic chemicals. 4

Farming

  • Tobacco is a sensitive plant prone to many diseases. Up to 16 applications of pesticide are recommended during one three-month growing period.5
  • “I used to get sicker than a dog, with fever, burning skin, and nausea, if I wasn’t real careful with the chemicals I sprayed on tobacco,” says Askins [an Appalachian tobacco farmer.] “You don’t hear bullfrogs or toads anymore, because we’ve poisoned the streams and creeks with our chemicals,” he speculates.5 
  • Tobacco is potassium-hungry, absorbing up to six times as much as other crops, leaving soil in poor condition for essential food and cash crops.3

 

[FOOTNOTE] 1 http://smoking.ygoy.com/smoking-and-the-environment 2 Weissman, Robert (1999). New Study on Tobacco and Deforestation, Tobacco Control. 3 Taylor, Peter, "Smoke Ring: The Politics of Tobacco", Panos Briefing Paper, September 1994, London pesticides 4 Stienstra, Tom, San Francisco Examiner, 9/13/96. 5 Hickey, Ellen & Chan, Yenyen. (1998). Tobacco, Farmers and Pesticides: The Other Story. Pesticide Action Network North America.