How Smoking Affects the Environment?

Smoking and the Environment: Smoking not only affects the smokers health, it also greatly influences the surrounding atmosphere. Smoke and cigarette butts affect the environment the most, resulting into air, water and land pollution. Even the production of cigarettes influences the environment a lot. Read more..

All smokers think that by smoking they are only damaging their health. They are ignorant about the fact that their smoking is indirectly affecting others health. And they are one of the direct contributors to the environmental pollution.

There are few environmental issues, which every smoker should be aware of. Smoking affects your environment greatly. This article would be discussing the various effects of smoking on the environment.

How Smoking Causes Air Pollution? (smoking environment pollution)

It is quite evident that smoking causes air pollution and to some extent also pollutes the ground. Approximately 4000 chemicals are present in cigarettes, which are breathed out and released in the atmosphere. Out of the total North American population 30% of them are smokers and the percentage of the smoking population in developing countries is much higher. This indicates that an enormous quantity of pollution is being released in the atmosphere every day.

How Smoking Causes Land and Water Pollution? (smoking environment damage)

Pollution caused due to smoking is not confined only to the air or body but to some extent it is also responsible in polluting the land and the water. Every day millions of cigarette butts are left on the ground. Maximum of the cigarette butts finally end up in lakes and rivers. By mistake fishes and other water animals eat these butts resulting in death of these water bodies. The remaining butts left on the ground will approximately take 25-26 years to decompose. The various additives and chemicals are leached into the soil, polluting the soil as well as plants. During dry seasons cigarette butts can even cause major fire, which is even harmful for the environment.

How Cigarette Production Affects Environment? (effects of smoking environment)

Effects of smoking environment:

Major impact on the environment is due the production of the cigarettes. The land, which is used for the cultivation of tobacco plants, could be better used for producing food for the third world countries. Moreover as the tobacco plant is highly susceptible to pests and disease so to maintain their proper growth and health various chemicals and pesticides are being sprayed. For the production and packaging of the cigarette requires a lot of trees.

In an hour cigarette-manufacturing unit requires almost 4 miles of paper for rolling and packaging of the cigarettes. Just to produce 300 cigarettes one tree is being wasted. Energy and water is also being wasted for the production of the cigarettes as well as the chemical wastes from the manufacturing unit is also dumped into the soil. Hence it is clear the cigarettes are in total adding huge strain on the body and environment.

With the use of more advance technology tobacco industry can help in decreasing the strain from the environment. But just to save billions of dollar profit/year the industry is not willing to go for the advanced technology. The best and the easiest way to control this environmental destruction, is to stop buying this harmful product. It is tough to quit smoking but directly (your health) and indirectly (environment) it will be beneficial for you only.