Smoking is not only harmful to health, it also has a negative impact on the environment, causing air pollution, deforestation, climate change, waste generation and fires.
In almost all cities there are restrictions on smoking in enclosed spaces and smokers go outside, where they produce gas emissions and release toxic pollutants into the atmosphere.
What is the most harmful effect of tobacco on the environment?
The effect of cigarette butts is devastating.
1.1 Billion smokers consume 6 Trillion cigarettes per year. That equates to 18 billion cigarettes every single day, 365 days a year. These cigarette butts take 15 years to decompose in the environment.
The most important components of cigarettes are tar and nicotine. The tar and nicotine residues found in a single cigarette butt can pollute up to 50 litres of water.
In addition, a large amount of paper is used to make cigarettes and packets.
Another harmful effect of tobacco on a large scale is deforestation. There are a large number of forest fires caused by badly extinguished cigarette butts. In addition, large areas are deforested in order to grow tobacco on the one hand and to use the wood to process the tobacco leaves on the other hand. It takes approximately the wood of one tree to produce 300 cigarettes.
In conclusion, it not only harms the health of the smoker and the people around him/her, but also generates or intensifies global environmental problems.
What ways are there to smoke in an environmentally friendly way?
Besides avoiding packaging, smoking tobacco in bulk and making your own cigarettes, for example with an electric cigarette injector, you can do a couple of more other things.
Well, if you have already taken the step to avoid buying ready-made cigarettes, significantly reducing the amount of waste you produce, the next step is to use biodegradable filter tubes. They are still a niche market, but you can now find them everywhere, either online or in well-stocked tobacconists.
There are even some companies like Cigg Seeds or Karma Filtertips that not only produce biodegradable filters, but also put a seed in the filter so that flowers, plants or even trees can grow from the butts that are thrown on the ground.
It is clear that the production of tobacco and/or cigarettes, like any other industrial activity, has an impact on the environment, but it would be great if, at least, by using biodegradable butts we users could contribute to taking care of our planet a little bit with every cigarette.
What else can we do to be better smokers, with regard to our environmental footprint?
- As mentioned above, smoke cigarettes without butts or at least with a biodegradable filter.
- Smoke natural tobacco. Obviously all the additives that we smoke in tobacco, on the one hand are released as smoke when smoking and on the other hand are trapped in the butts, contributing to an even greater pollution of the planet.
- Never throw cigarette butts into the water, nor in the street.
- If we are in nature, on the beach or in other places where we cannot dispose of cigarette butts properly, it is advisable to carry a portable ashtray or an airtight box where we can store cigarette butts after smoking.
- Recycle. When it comes to recycling cigarette butts, it is good to find out what the possibilities are in your city or in the area where you live, as there are many different ways to dispose of them in a sustainable way. For example in Mendoza, Argentina, there is a company that transforms used cigarette butts into building bricks and they have their own recycling system.
In short, be aware of the environmental consequences of your actions, including your smoking habits, inform yourself and try to be as respectful as possible with nature. And finally, spread this information. Set an example to others and invite them to follow your advice.