Beyond its impact on public health, the tobacco industry is also the cause of considerable environmental damage, causing pollution and emissions which contribute to climate change, underlines a report.
Le Monde with AFP
The tobacco industry is “one of the largest polluters we know”, accuses Rüdiger Krech, the Director of World Health Organization (WHO) for health promotion.
The UN agency presents, Tuesday, May 31, a report entitled “Tobacco, poison for our planet”, whose conclusions are “quite disastrous”, declared Mr. Krech to the Agency France-Presse (AFP).
The document studies the environmental imprint of the sector as a whole, from the cultivation of plants to the manufacture of tobacco products, including consumption and waste. While the industry is responsible for the loss of 600 million trees, tobacco cultivation uses 200,000 hectares of land each year and 22 billion tonnes of water, and emits around 84 million tonnes of CO2, according to the Report.
4,500 billion butts per year
“Tobacco products, which are most often thrown from the planet, contain more than 7,000 chemical compounds which, once thrown, spread in the environment,” continues Rüdiger Krech. Each of the 4,500 billion cigarette butts that end up in nature each year can pollute up to 100 liters of water, he emphasizes.
The dangers of tobacco for health are not limited to consumption and waste: almost a quarter of tobacco growers suffer from green tobacco disease, a form of nicotine poisoning by the skin. In constant contact with tobacco leaves, these cultivators consume the equivalent of nicotine contained in 50 cigarettes per day, explains Mr. Krech, who underlines that the sector employs a large number of children. “Imagine only: a 12-year-old child exposed to 50 cigarettes per day,” he concludes.
According to the report, tobacco is often cultivated in rather poor countries, where water and cultivated land are often rare, and where these cultures take the place of crucial food production.
Deforestation
Tobacco cultivation is also responsible for around 5 % of deforestation worldwide, and contributes to the exhaustion of precious water reserves. An important part of global greenhouse gas emissions comes from the transformation and transport of tobacco – the equivalent of a fifth of the carbon footprint of air transport.
WHO also alerts tobacco -derived products – cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and e -cigarettes – which contribute significantly to the accumulation of plastic pollution in the world.
Cigarette filters contain traces of microplastics, these small fragments found in the oceans around the world, including at the bottom of the Mariannes pit, the deepest in the world – which makes it the second largest source of plastic pollution in the world.
Contrary to what the tobacco industry claims, there is however no evidence that these filters have a beneficial effect on health, underlines the WHO. The UN agency therefore urges political leaders from around the world to treat these filters as single -use plastics, and to consider their ban.
She also deplores that the gigantic costs of cleaning the waste from the tobacco industry are supported by taxpayers around the world. According to the report, China spends around 2.6 billion dollars each year (2.4 billion euros) to treat waste from tobacco products. For India, the bill amounts to $ 766 million, while Brazil and Germany must pay $ 200 million each.
WHO therefore insists that more countries follow the example of France and Spain by adopting the principle of polluter pays. For Rüdiger Krech, it is important that “the industry really pays for the damage it is created.”