Tobacco industry has ‘disastrous’ impact on environment, says WHO

Mountains of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change. Beyond its impact on public health, the tobacco industry is also the cause of considerable environmental damage, warned Tuesday, May 31 the World Health Organization (WHO). The tobacco industry is “one of the biggest polluters we know”WHO Director for Health Promotion Rüdiger Krech explained, reporting on the findings “pretty disastrous”.

The document (in English)entitled “Tobacco, poison for our planet”, looks at the environmental footprint of the sector as a whole, from the cultivation of the plants to the manufacture of tobacco products, including consumption and waste. While the industry is responsible for the loss of 600 million trees, tobacco growing uses 200,000 hectares of land and 22 billion tonnes of water each year, and emits around 84 million tonnes of CO2, according to the report.

“Tobacco products, which are the most commonly discarded litter on the planet, contain more than 7,000 chemical compounds which, once discarded, spread into the environment”, continues Rüdiger Krech. Each of the 4.5 trillion cigarette butts that end up in nature every year can pollute up to 100 liters of water, he points out.

According to the report, tobacco is also often grown in rather poor countries, where water and cultivated land are often scarce, and where these crops take the place of crucial food production. Tobacco cultivation is also responsible for about 5% of deforestation in the world and contributes to the depletion of precious water reserves.