Smoking: Environmental and Social Impacts
by Warren McLaren, Sydney 
on 02.27.07
In the past we have talked about the litter problem resulting from cigarette smoking. We tendered some solutions: biodegradable filters and butt boxes, as well as a suggestion for responsible disposable messages on cigarette packaging. But really these are what are known as ‘end-of-pipe’ solutions. They deal with the result of the problem, not its cause: society’s addictive consumption of tobacco. We do like positive stories at TH, but this time around we offer a few sobering snippets of info on the issue and hope they might lead to greater insight ... and action. (Sources can be found by clicking the numbered references.)
Global cigarette production in 2004 was 5.5 trillion units, or 868 cigarettes per every man, woman and child on the planet . 1
There are around 1.2 billion smokers in the world (about one-third of the global population aged 15 and over). 2. Nearly forty per cent (39.4%) of Europeans smoke, (up from 1995, when a figure of 33.9% recorded.) 2a.
At least 4.5 trillion [non-biodegradable] filter-tipped cigarettes are deposited annually somewhere in the world. 3
China, United States, Brazil, Turkey and Indonesia are the five countries that produce the most raw tobacco leaves and manufactured cigarettes. 4
Malawi, Korea, Macedonia, Moldova, and Lebanon devote more than 1% of their agricultural land to tobacco leaf production. 4
In Africa, around 5% of all deforestation is caused by tobacco. In Malawi, where the ancient dry forests of the miombo highlands are particularly under threat, tobacco accounts for 20% of deforestation. 5
Each year nearly 600 million trees are destroyed to provide fuel to dry tobacco. Put in another way one tree is destroyed for every 300 cigarettes. 6
Globally, tobacco curing requires 11.4 million tons of solid wood annually. 7
Tobacco is a sensitive plant prone to many diseases. It therefore requires huge chemical inputs: up to 16 applications of pesticide are recommended during one three-month growing period. Aldrin and Dieldrin, and DDT are among the chemicals used. Methyl bromide, widely used as a fumigant in developing countries, contributes significantly to ozone depletion. 5
As well as being hazardous to users, chemicals may run off into water courses, contaminating local water supplies.2 There are also concerns about high levels of pesticide use leading to the development of resistance in mosquitoes and flies, making the control of diseases such as malaria more difficult. 5
Tobacco is particularly potassium-hungry, absorbing up to six times as much as other crops, leaving soil in poor condition for essential food and cash crops. 5
Modern cigarette manufacturing machines use more than six kilometres of paper per hour. 8
In 1995 worldwide tobacco manufacturing produced 2.26 billion kilograms of solid waste and 209 million kilograms of chemical waste. 7
Releases to the environment of Toxics Release Inventory chemicals by the tobacco manufacturing industry in the United States recorded for 1996 included (but weren’t limited to):
Ammonia 946,155 kg
Hydrochloric acid 407,371 kg
Methyl ethyl ketone 340,821 kg
Nicotine and nicotine salts 900,377 kg
Sulphuric acid 67,228 kg
Toluene 349,622 kg 3
“I used to get sicker than a dog, with fever, burning skin, and nausea, if I wasn’t real careful with the chemicals I sprayed on tobacco,” says Askins [an Appalachian tobacco farmer.] The chemicals may have affected the environment, as well. “You don’t hear bullfrogs or toads anymore, because we’ve poisoned the streams and creeks with our chemicals,” he speculates. He also describes the symptoms of nicotine poisoning from handling the ripe tobacco plant: sudden nausea, dizziness, and headaches. 9
Tobacco is the second major cause of death in the world. It is currently responsible for the death of one in ten adults worldwide (about 5 million deaths each year). If current smoking patterns continue, it will cause some 10 million deaths each year by 2020. Half the people that smoke today -that is about 650 million people- will eventually be killed by tobacco. 10
Cigarette smoke contains polonium 210, a radioactive element. One study shows that a person who smokes 20 cigarettes a day receives a dose of radiation each year equivalent to about 200 chest x-rays. 5
In 1999, tobacco-related medical expenditures and productivity losses cost the United States more than $150 billion—almost 1.5 times the revenue of the five largest multinational tobacco companies that year. 11
A Finnish study of consumer reaction to a possible ‘eco-cigarette’, found that dispensing with the external plastic wrapping, aluminium foil liner, and use of unbleached or oxygen bleached paper for the box and/or cigarette instead of the usual chlorine bleaching would likely be acceptable to smokers. 12
Tobacco and poverty are inextricably linked. Many studies have shown that in the poorest households in some low-income countries as much as 10% of total household expenditure is on tobacco. This means that these families have less money to spend on basic items such as food, education and health care. 10
... and saving the best (and rare good news) for last:
Mullins says that whereas he netted about $2,500 from his best acre of tobacco this past season, he cleared roughly $20,000 from a nearby acre of organic grape tomatoes. Comment by an Appalachian tobacco farmer transitioning his land to organic vegetable production. 9
NB: And yeh, we know the cigarette in the top photo most likely does not use one of those 4.5 trillion filters discarded annually.
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Is this anti-agricultural or anti-smoking?
Any crop grown will consume land and cause deforestation. Cotton, corn, anything will use pesticides etc. Some more then others. Not all crops can be grown with stricly organic methods. Using this as an anti-tobacco argument doesn't make sense to me.
Increases in deforestation and destruction of pristine lands is caused by over population. The less people you have the less land is consumed.
Anything that kills humans faster is better for the rest of the environment.
I think the big deal with this is that ciggs are harmful for you anyway, so in a sense it's doubly wasteful.
You're not just harming the earth to produce a pesticide-reliant plant, you're also harming your own body (and a lot of those around you) and costing the world billions in healthcare.
It's not anti-agricultural at all. It's simply pointing out the true resource impact that the production of cigarettes incurs. Besides the environmental impact from fertilizers, deforestation, and water use in production, the use of tobacco causes in incredible amount of morbidity and mortality and the spending of hundreds of billions of healthcare dollars. Throw in littering 4.5 trillion non-biodegradeable filters, and the overall environmental and social impacts of cigarette smoking are inexcuseable.
Some interesting statistics, some bogus, and some conflicting.
"Modern cigarette manufacturing machines use more than six kilometres of paper per hour. 8"
This statistic is just a meaningless scare tactic. A kilometer is a meaningless measure for paper. If you cut one sheet of office paper into strips 0.06mm wide it will be 6 km long.
Also, from a sustainability standpoint, the facts that cigarettes kill and cause huge medical costs are offsetting. The increased medical costs must be offset against the costs of the "victims of cigarettes" living out the rest of their natural lives. And let's face it, what does "a natural death" even mean anymore? People have to die sometime, and whether it's a heart attack at age 60 or lung cancer at age 70 it seems that it always must be blamed on something. (smoking, heart disease etc) If you really want to be objective about smoking's environmental impacts besides its agricultural and waste impacts then you need to tackle this dicey subject.
It seems crazy that anyone would smoke cigs in this day and age. Also, it would be ironic if someone who is rallying against air pollution also smoked.
This is one reason I'm suspicious of national healthcare… I don't want to pay for all the smokers that made bad choices and are now going to cost the economy billions in dollars. In fact, they've probably harmed others with their second hand smoke, so it is just karma catching up with them.
Give us a break 'holy' Andrew - your rationalised, sanitised view of life is more of a problem than a bit of smoke.
Thank God, God is in charge with all sorts of irrational, counter-intuitive and mysterious 'thunderbolts' that confound this sort of well-meaning, reasonable yet totally unrealistic and un-life-like pontificating.
It's dangerous out there. Praise the Lord!
OK first I have to admit I'm an addict. I have smoked since I was 11 and I'm now 42.
Health issues apart I'm trying to reduce my environmental impact in all aspects of my life.
So, I hand roll, with hemp papers & without tips.
It's not much, but it's all biodegradable it's also how I like my smoke breaks :)
i just quit 2 weeks ago after being a ridiculously heavy smoker (roughly 2 packs a day). i still miss the physical sensation of inhaling the smoke, and i probably always will, but this is a nice reminder of some of my reasons for quitting, so thanks treehugger for reinforcing my willpower!
"Health issues apart I'm trying to reduce my environmental impact in all aspects of my life."
And sooner -- rather than later -- you'll be 100% "carbon neutral". Keep up the good work.
I compost any leaves I consume and put it in my planters. My leaves: I make 2 cups of tea a day for myself a day, one black, one green, both loose-leaf. I smoke one cigar a month. I compost the used tea leaves and the remaining tobacco leaves and put it in my yard.
Is it a bad idea to compost tobacco leaves from cigars? It's selfish, but my reasoning for doing this was that I can put nutrients from Vuelta Abajo (from Cubans), and Assam, Darjeeling, Morocco etc. (from tea leaves) into my yard. (Of course, I could give these up, but I like them too much and I don't know of any local sources for these plants).
Also, I don't do this yet, but should I compost the cigar ash?
This article neglects to mention the billions of taxes that smokers pay for their addictive habit.Hmm..maybe if that was being funneled into health care?
Let's not forget that so-called "tobacco" can be made, in U.S. patented ways, from paper waste (from trees) and from timber-products waste, and from Loblolly pine cellulose.
This is about "tobacco substitute material" as the Patent Office calls it. Search up Pat No. 3978866 and 3993082 and 6289897 for a few gems.
According to the patents, this stuff can substitute "partly or entirely" for tobacco in cigarette stuffing. And no law requires revealing of this. The fraud is done other ways...by calling the products "tobacco products" no matter WHAT is in them, by calling the mfgrs "Tobacco companies", and by even officials and medical science professionals who should (and probably do) know better, complaiing about "tobacco use".
Of course, mfgrs can't SAY it's tobacco on a package of cigs made from this industrial waste cellulose, so they just don't put the word "tobacco" there...expcept, in some cases, as part of the manufacturer's name.
The word "tobacco" is a tool of one of the great lies of our time. To blame tobacco (which itself hasn't been studied yet, to all appearances) for the effects of Pesticide and Radiation Contaminated tobacco, or stuff that may contain no tobacco at all, is preposterous, and a source of considerable injustice.
Ironically, since tobacco is the sixth most pesticide drenched crop (in the US anyway), it may be SAFER to smoke processed tree and paper trash that "simulates" tobacco than to go for the contaminated tobacco products. They all have their chlorine adulterants and produce dioxin for unwitting smokers...but...that's no concern of chlorine-funded officials.
And, regarding the issue of "smoking" and forests... the prohibitions of hemp are astronomically harmful to forests, denying the world an alternative, non-toxic, pesticide-free, chlorine-free, low-water-using source of fiber for paper and building materials. To care about forest preservation and to NOT demand re-legalization of hemp agriculture (in the US primarilly) is to be doing As Little As Possible for the forests.
Smoking related diseases kill more than 100,000 Japanese smokers each year, 50 percent more casualties than the US firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945, which killed about 72,500 people. United States was the enemy!
http://japanifik.wordpress.com/
"i still miss the physical sensation of inhaling the smoke, and i probably always will" Hey, pEndr4gON,putting addiction aside, do you know that the reason that smoking is so enjoyable is not because of inhaling the smoke, but is actually due to taking slow, deep breaths. Think about it, by taking in a deep breath you are relaxing yourself. Unfortunately a lot of smokers think that the relaxing feeling they get is because of breathing in the smoke...but you can still get the same relaxing effects of smoking, without the smoke, just relax and take some deep breaths. So, you don't have to miss the the sensation of inhaling, you can get the same effects without the smoke...try it.
Of all the cigarette companies, the only one trying to attain a natural cigarette that uses sustainable growing and production practices is Santa Fe Natural Tobacco, the makers of Natural American Spirit.
They are the only cigarette maker that grows their own tobacco, and it is the only maker with a Ceritfied Organic tobacco line that they use in their Roll Your Own and their Organics Cigarette line.
Now to be clear, the tobacco is Organic. The paper, filter used is natural fibers, but not organic.
Fascinating article.
You haven't considered the impact of transporting the product from filed to factory and from factory to end user. There must be a fair few tons of carbon in transporting 275 billion packs of cigarettes.
i believe more smokers should smoke e-cigarettes, it reduces the chemical intake, so only the nicotine is inhaled (and they are avaliable without nicotine too), It stops so mutch of the environmetal impact, doesn't have second hand smoke and they can be used with less and less nicotine eatch time, to help smokers give up, and it means that if people want to start smoking because they think its 'cool', they could just buy tea-tree flavour whitch contains no nicotine or the other dangerous chemicals found in normal cigarettes and gives them what they want without the health impacs. An all- round winner.
Well - its all about personal choice at the end of the day!
Ready Made magazine thinks enough of Natural American Spirit cigarettes to place a full page ad in their Feb/March 2009 issue.
Tobacco is tobacco, sustainable or not.
If it kills you, is it still sustainable?
All things in moderation. I smoke on great occasion, usually only when drinking with friends. On a really bad month, if I'm going out a lot, I smoke two packs all month. I also enjoy the occasional cigar.
I don't see anything wrong with that. I do see something wrong with gross over-consumption of anything and cigarettes are no different.
The problem with tobacco is so many people have so much difficulty moderating.
Just one more reason to switch to electronic cigarettes!
No electronic cigarette butts will ever litter our country!
Here is more info on electronic cigarettes