Cigarettes have a significant impact on the environment, not just on health

The devastating impact of the tobacco industry on human health is well known. However, a new report consistently highlights for the first time the substantial impact of the tobacco industry on the environment.

The report, written by scientists from Imperial College London, was launched today at a meeting of the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. .

Limited resources

These impacts include climate change due to energy and fuel consumption, depletion of water and soil and acidification. The global tobacco culture requires substantial land use, water use, pesticides and labor – all of which are limited resources that could be better utilized.

Globally, growing 32.4 million tonnes of green tobacco, used to produce 6.48 million tonnes of dry tobacco in the 6,000 billion cigarettes manufactured worldwide in 2014, contributes for almost 84 million CO2 to climate change – about 0.2% of the global total.

Professor Nick Voulvoulis, of the Imperial Center for Environmental Policy, said: "The environmental impact of smoking, from cradle to grave, adds significant pressure to the increasingly scarce resources of the planet and fragile ecosystems: Tobacco is reducing our quality of life for resources containing livelihoods and development products around the world. "

Intensive production of energy

"Processing", ie the polymerization of tobacco leaves for the production of dry tobacco, requires a lot of energy and uses coal or wood, which contributes to greenhouse gases and deforestation. Tobacco production also uses more than 22 billion tonnes of water.

The transportation and manufacture of cigarettes, as well as their end use and disposal, also use more resources and leave other wastes.

The largest consumer of cigarettes in the world – China – harvests more than 3 Mt of tobacco leaves by harnessing more than 1.5 million hectares of arable land and important freshwater resources – while that habitats suffer from water scarcity and that nearly 134 million people are undernourished.

Crop yields

The report compares the impact of tobacco on other crops that typically require fewer inputs. In addition, the yield of these crops is often considerably higher than that of tobacco. In Zimbabwe, for example, one hectare of land could produce 19 times more potatoes than the current 1 to 1.2 tonnes of tobacco.

Evidence also suggests that the cultivation of alternative crops is better for farmers and their families, with child labor remaining a major problem in tobacco production.

About 90% of total tobacco production is concentrated in developing countries – of the top ten tobacco producing countries, nine are developing and four are low-income food-deficit countries (LIFDCs), of which India, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and Malawi. However, the majority of cigarette consumption takes place in developed countries.

Dr. Nicholas Hopkinson, of the National Institute of Heart and Lungs at the Imperial, said, "Smokers from developed countries literally and metaphorically burn the resources of the poorest countries."

A lifetime impact

The report also calculates the environmental impact of a single smoker during his lifetime: a person who smokes a pack of 20 cigarettes a day for 50 years is responsible for the depletion of 1.4 million liters of water.

The report calls for various measures to address these issues. This includes strengthening the global database to fill gaps in current environmental data, encourage sustainable investment and ensure that the environmental cost of tobacco is included in the price, and to encourage the sector to take responsibility for the entire life. cycle of its products.

The report is based on a scientific analysis published in the journal Science and technology of the environment.

Explore more:
Smoking: an overview of the ignition

More information:
Maria Zafeiridou et al. Smoking: an assessment of the global environmental footprint of tobacco over its entire supply chain, Science and technology of the environment (2018). DOI: 10.1021 / acs.est.8b01533