Tobacco’s environmental effect is devastating: WHO

GENEVA, (dawn,com) 1 June 2022 -   The tobacco industry is a far greater threat than many realise. It is one of the world’s biggest polluters, from leaving mountains of waste to driving global warming, the WHO said on Tuesday.   

The World Health Organisation accused the industry of causing widespread deforestation, diverting badly needed land and water in poor countries away from food production, spewing out plastic and chemical waste as well as emitting millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide.   

In its report on ‘World No Tobacco Day’, WHO called for the tobacco industry to be held to account and foot the bill for the cleanup.   

“Tobacco is not only poisoning people, it’s poisoning our planet.” The industry is responsible for the loss of some 600 million trees each year — or five percent of global deforestation — while tobacco growing and production uses 200,000 hectares of land and 22 billion tonnes of water annually, the report found. It also emits around 84 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, it said.   

He added each of the estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette butts that end up in the oceans, rivers, sidewalks and beaches every year can pollute 100 litres of water.