Every year, tobacco kills more than 8 million people. But on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day on Tuesday, May 31, the World Health Organization warns of another danger represented by the tobacco industry: its disastrous consequences on the environment, with each year “the destruction of 600 million trees, 200,000 hectares of land, loss of 22 billion tons of water and the emission of 84 million tonnes of CO2“, points out a report entitled “Tobacco, a poison for our planet”. The figures take into account the cultivation of tobacco, its transformation, transport and even the consequences of waste.
Every year, 4.5 trillion cigarette butts end up in “our oceans, rivers, sidewalks, parks, soils and beaches“, notes Dr Ruediger Krech, Director of the Department of Health Promotion at WHO. Each cigarette butt thrown on the ground, with its 7000 chemical components, can pollute up to 100 liters of water, partly because of the micro-plastics contained in the filters, which are then evacuated to the ocean. These wastesconstitute the second highest type of plastic pollution in the world“, according to the World Health Organization.
Follow the “polluter pays” logic
In this logic, the report calls on public authorities around the world to “consider cigarette filters for what they are, namely single-use plastics and to consider banning cigarette filters to protect public health and the environment“, with the argument put forward by the cost of picking up tobacco products : 2.6 billion dollars for China, more than 200 million for Germany or Brazil.
France, for its part, is shown as an example to follow, with the “polluter pays” policy. In recent months, producers have been paying a contribution of 80 million euros to an eco-organization, which is then redistributed to communities. In its statement, the WHO “urges countries and cities to follow this example” and to impose high taxes on tobacco.