Things That Make You Go Green

We’ve all heard about the harmful effects of smoking, whether it’s lung cancer, emphysema, or the dangerous effects of second hand smoke. This is all on top of yellow teeth, smelly skin / clothes, yellow ceilings in your house, depreciating your car’s value, or the monetary effects of purchasing packs of cigarettes. What hasn’t really been highlighted are the environment effects of smoking.

Globally, there are over 1.2 billion smokers who consume an estimated 6 trillion cigarettes – equivalent to about 900 cigarettes per person on the planet. Approximately one third of North Americans smoke, and the percentage is even higher in Europe and developing countries. Although the sheer effects of burning that many cigarettes is detrimental to the air, the harm cigarettes cause do not stop at our lungs or the air. Each year, enormous amounts of cigarette butts are discarded improperly, not only starting fires, but also creating a huge amount of pollution and chemical waste when they decompose (filter-tipped cigarettes do not decompose).

On top of this, producing cigarettes also consumes huge amounts of energy and resources. Because tobacco plants are sensitive, up to 16 pesticide applications are required each growing season, leading to a large amount of chemical runoff, ozone pollution, and land toxicity. Nearly 600 million trees are used each year to provide the necessary fuel to dry tobacco, which equates to approximately one tree for every 300 cigarettes. About 4 miles of paper is used per hour by manufacturing machines, and nearly 6 billion pounds of solid waste is produced annually on top of the over 500 million pounds of chemical waste. There are also huge amount of toxic releases such as ammonia, hydrochloric acid, sulpuric acid, and toluene (just to name a few examples) into the environment directly associated with tobacco manufacturing. Finally, to top this all off, tobacco related medical expenses and lost productivity accounts for over $150 billion annually in the U.S. alone.

It continues to baffle me that more is not done to help people quit smoking. I know nicotine addiction is strong, as are the tobacco lobbies in Washington. However, given the huge economic, social, and environment costs, when will we have enough? In this case, it’s good to be a quitter.