Environmental Information
The life-cycle of a cigarette takes a heavy toll on the environment.
As global production of tobacco increases, more and more land is being cleared to make way for tobacco farming, this accounts for an estimated 200,000 hectares of woodland being removed annually.
Tobacco production thrives in semi-arid conditions and deforested land is prone to desertification and becomes unfit for agriculture.
The amount of land diverted towards tobacco farming and away from food production could provide food for an estimated 10 to 20 million people.
Climate change (global warming) is caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide and other gases polluting the atmosphere. The tobacco curing process uses heat to dry the tobacco leaves, this heat is produced by felling and then burning trees, whilst others use gas to fuel burners. Both processes produce large quantities of harmful greenhouse gases
Tobacco production uses large amounts of fertiliser, pesticide and herbicides, many of them highly toxic substances. These leach into the soil and ultimately find their way into water courses and eventually into the food chain. It is also believed that this has led to the genetic evolution of a pesticide-resistant breed of mosquito, making the control of diseases such as malaria much harder.
Tobacco workers are also prone to a disease called Green Tobacco Sickness (GTS) caused by absorbing nicotine from the wet tobacco leaves.
The manufacturing processes for cigarettes and cigars create large quantities of waste. The disposal of tobacco slurries, solvents, oils, paper, wood, plastics, packaging materials and airborne pollution all have long term implications for the environment.
200 million cigarette butts are discarded in the UK every day taking around 12 years to decompose. Please refer to the EnCams website
Cigarettes are the principal source of litter on beaches throughout the world. According to Ocean Conservancy a group that monitors marine pollution, cigarette butts accounted for almost 25% of the litter collected from beaches across 68 countries on one day in 2006.