On the annual World No Tobacco Day, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a report “Tobacco: Poisoning Our Planet” which looks at the devastating impact of the industry on the planet. According to the United Nations health agency, the tobacco industry poses a far greater threat than many people think of as one of the world’s biggest polluters. The WHO, in its report, blamed the tobacco industry and called for a bill to clean up. The WHO said that tobacco kills more than 8 million people worldwide every year. China, Brazil and India are the largest tobacco leaf producers, with China accounting for 3.2 million metric tons.
Here’s how tobacco is harmful to both humans and the environment:
1. The tobacco industry is responsible for the loss of about 600 million trees every year. Tobacco farming also accounts for about 5% of global deforestation and exacerbates the depletion of precious water resources.
2. Tobacco growing and production uses 200,000 hectares of land and 22 billion tonnes of water annually.
3. Tobacco accounts for a significant portion of global greenhouse gas emissions – the equivalent of a fifth of the global airline industry’s carbon footprint.
4. Products such as cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes also contribute significantly to the global build-up of plastic pollution, warned the WHO.
5. Cigarette butts are by far the largest single type of litter by count. Cigarette filters contain microplastics – tiny fragments that have been found in every ocean and even at the bottom of the world’s deepest trench – and make up the second largest form of plastic pollution worldwide.
WHO has urged policymakers around the world to consider cigarette filters as single-use plastics and consider banning them.
It also cried out that taxpayers around the world were covering the enormous cost of cleaning up the filth of the tobacco industry.
For example, China pays about $2.6 billion each year and India about $766 million, while Brazil and Germany pay about $200 million each to clean tobacco products, the UN agency said.