World No Tobacco Day: How tobacco is poisoning our planet

Every year, approximately 600 million trees are cut down and 200,000 hectares cleared for tobacco cultivation. (Illustration by Suneesh K.)

Every year, the tobacco industry costs the world more than 8 million human lives, 600 million trees, 200,000 hectares of land, 22 billion tonnes of water and 84 million tonnes of CO2. Add to it cigarette butts that are one of the most littered items on this planet. On World No Tobacco Day, here’s a look at how tobacco is poisoning our planet.

Trees chopped: Every year, approximately 600 million trees are cut down and 200,000 hectares cleared for tobacco cultivation. And an estimated 11.4 million metric tonnes of wood are burned to cure tobacco every year.

As of 2022, tobacco farming is responsible for 5 percent of all global deforestation. On average each tree produces enough paper for 15 packs of cigarettes. 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.

The majority of tobacco is grown in low-and-middle-income countries, where water and farmland are often desperately needed to produce food for the region. Instead, they are being used to grow tobacco plants, while more and more land is being cleared of forests.

Water used: Globally, 22 billion tonnes of water is used in tobacco production every year. That is early 3.5 times the water volume of Lake Chad in Africa. It takes 3.7 litres of water to make 1 cigarette. Multiply that by 5.4 trillion cigarettes produced globally every year.

Nearly 678 litres of water is used for 1 kilogram of tobacco during cultivation stage. That’s almost two bathtubs full of water (a standard bathtub holds 312 litres of water).

Packaging waste: An estimated 6 trillion cigarettes are manufactured every year, and these are marketed in about 300 billion packages composed of paper, ink, cellophane, foil and glue. In 2021, at least 2 million tonnes of waste was generated from cartons and boxes used for distribution and packing of tobacco. That global waste is equivalent to the weight of 9,433 freight trains or 17,000 times the weight of the Bell of Good Luck in Henan Province, China – the heaviest bell in the world.

The packaging waste is polluting the water bodies and killing marine life. The plastic packaging around a pack of cigarettes can be eaten after being mistaken for a jellyfish or other food item, and this could become lodged in the throat or intestinal tract of animals, either causing suffocation or problems with digestion.

CO2 emissions: Cigarette smoking globally emits nearly 2.6 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide and 5.2 billion kilograms of methane into the atmosphere each year. That’s 84 megatons of carbon-dioxide! By comparison, one rocket launch that leads to 300 tons of CO2 emission.

The estimated annual emissions produced by the tobacco manufacturing process are equal to the emissions of roughly 3 million transatlantic flights.

Causing forest fires: Worldwide, the forest fires started by burning cigarette butts are countless. Globally, about 17,000 people die each year because of fires started by cigarette lighters or discarded burning cigarettes. In terms of property damage, the losses are more than $27 billion every year.

Cigarette butts: Cigarette butts are the world’s second most common type of litter after food wrappers, according to Washington DC-based Truth Initiative’s report. Every year, 1.69 billion pounds of cigarette butts wind up as toxic trash. In 2021, International Coastal Cleanup Day, 1,134,292 cigarette butts were recovered from beaches and waterways and if the butts collected were laid end to end, they would stretch longer than the length of the Panama Canal.

Cigarette butts have been found to contain nicotine, arsenic, lead, cadmium, copper, chromium, ethylphenol and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, presenting a clear risk to marine life and other animals.

Cigarette filters or the plastic part of the butt take up to 10 years for complete degradation.

E-cigarettes: According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, at least five disposable e-cigarettes are being thrown away every second in the United States, amounting to 150 million devices per year — which together contain enough lithium for about 6,000 Teslas.

In 2022, 321.4 million units of e-cigarettes were sold, generating $5.1 billion in convenience store e-cigarette sales alone. According to a 2022 Truth Initiative survey, over two-thirds of disposable e-cigarette users disposed of the hazardous waste in the trash, where it can start fires in bins, waste trucks, or in waste processing facilities and 9 percent of young users threw their devices anywhere. Only 8 percent of young vape users disposed of their e-cigarettes properly through e-waste facilities.

Cost of cleaning up: The costs of cleaning up littered tobacco products fall on taxpayers, rather than the industry creating the problem. Each year, this costs India roughly US$ 766 million, China US$ 2.6 billion and the cost for Brazil and Germany is over US$ 200 million.

(Source: WHO, The Truth Initiative)