Smoking And What Are Its Effects On The Environment?

Tobacco doesn’t just negatively impact the health of individuals. It also endangers the health of the environment. When e-cigarette and cigarette waste isn’t disposed of properly, it makes its way into the environment, where it ends up polluting water, air, and land with toxic chemicals, heavy metals, and residual nicotine. An estimated 766,571 metric tons of cigarette butts enter the environment every year. Additionally, in 2018, Americans generated 2.7 million tons of consumer electronic waste, including e-cigarette waste that ultimately ends up in landfills or incinerators. 

Medication used for 

• Varenicline – is a drug used to help people quit smoking. It has a smoking cessation property and is widely used by people who want to quit smoking. Varenicline, counseling support, and behavior modification are used to eliminate nicotine dependence. The active ingredient of this medication belongs to the class of medication known as smoking cessation aids. It helps reduce nicotine cravings and the pleasure a smoker can get from smoking.

What Is The Environmental Impact Of Cigarette Litter?

• Cigarette butts cause pollution by being carried, as runoff, to drains, rivers, beaches, and oceans.
• Preliminary studies show that organic compounds (such as nicotine, pesticide residues, and metal) seep from cigarette butts into aquatic ecosystems, becoming acutely toxic to fish and microorganisms.
• In one laboratory study, the chemicals that leached from a single cigarette butt released enough toxins to kill 50 percent of the saltwater and freshwater fish exposed to it for 96 hours.
• Another laboratory study found that cigarette butts can be a source of heavy metal contamination in water, which may harm local organisms.
• A study of the effects of roadside waste on soil found that patterns of hydrocarbon levels in the soil were similar to those of littered cigarette butts. It indicates that the chemicals in the soil had seeped out of cigarette butts. Some hydrocarbons are carcinogenic.
• Both the batteries and e-cigarette devices contain hazardous substances such as lead and mercury.
• Lithium-ion batteries in e-cigarettes have been known to explode and cause fires in garbage trucks and waste management plants if damaged or exposed to extreme heat. According to a California survey, 56% of the fires at waste facilities between 2016-2018 were reported to have been caused by batteries, mostly lithium-ion ones.
• Incompletely used liquid cartridges and refills contain nicotine salts and heavy metals, which can leach into soil and waterways or be ingested by wildlife.
• Before lithium-ion batteries can be placed in the trash, they must be fully discharged and cooled, submerged in cold salt water for two weeks, and wrapped in newspaper.

What Are The Effects Of Deforestation From Tobacco Farming?

After harvesting, the tobacco needs drying. Tobacco is dried under the sun, in the air, or heated in ovens depending on the variety. The Virginia tobacco variety is the main ingredient of the popular American Blend cigarettes. This variety is dried in a process known as flue-curing. For about one week, the green leaves hang in sheds over hot tubes heated by fire around the clock. Every year, 8 million tons of firewood are needed for flue-curing. To gain enough fuel, wood trees are cut down in surrounding forests. And that’s not all: additional forest areas are cleared to open up new fields because tobacco requires a lot of nutrients, so the soils are leached to such an extent that new fields are needed after two to three years.

What Is The Impact Of Smoking On Climate Change?

Here are a couple of mind-numbing facts about smoking and the extent of environmental damage and pollution it causes:

• Each year, 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are disposed of. A generous estimate is that half of them end up in landfills – the other half in soil, lakes, oceans, and forests. Cigarette butts are theoretically biodegradable (they are made of cellulose acetate). Still, it takes them under 2 years to completely vanish (which is debatable as nothing vanishes completely) under perfect conditions.
• The tobacco industry chops down six hundred million trees every year. Remember that for every 15 packs of cigarettes a smoker smokes, one tree has to die.
• The US tobacco industry produces 16 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in one year – global tobacco production quadruples that amount. For comparison, one car produces 4 million times less. Shutting down the tobacco industry equates to taking 16 million cars off the streets yearly.
• Tobacco manufacturers use four miles of paper every hour to wrap and package cigarettes and other products – making the entire industry a sizeable contributor to deforestation. However, it already is one, to begin with.

Unfortunately, very few people know about the gigantic negative influence that the tobacco industry has on the planet. They might be vaguely aware that smoking contributes to global warming but would be surprised to learn to what extent the entire industry adversely affects ecosystems.