Cigarettes And Its Sustainabillity

For many smokers, there’s no better way to start off the day with a cigarette; as soon as that first puff pours into the lungs, every inch of the skin cheers in the long-waited pleasure. Cigarette plays an important role in our lives especially when it comes to stress relief and social interaction, despite what we know about the health risks. In fact, the well-known danger of cigarette-smoking contributes to its popularity: there’s a certain kind of aesthetic pleasure associated with overcoming danger, that is, every puff of poison you survived.

In some culture, people who refuse to smoke cigarettes with their friends are considered selfish because of their unwillingness to blend in at a (arguably) small price. However, this doesn’t negate the fact that cigarette is toxic. It’s not only poisonous to the human body, but also to the environment at every stage of its life cycle, from tobacco-growing, production, distribution, to disposal.

When we picture a tobacco farm in our head, we see acres of green plants that’s somewhat scenic, but its harm is often overlooked.

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It seems like that tobacco plants are holding the soil together, but they actually replaced the forest that did a better job at stabilizing the soil. With the forests and wildlife gone, biodiversity is decreasing at a shocking rate. Tobacco cultivation also requires heavy machinery that consumes mass amount of energy, let alone water consumption and the use of pesticides which is harmful for tobacco farmers. Since tobacco is the most lucrative crop per acre, many developing countries would favor tobacco growing, and hire young workers to maximize their profit.

It’s heartbreaking to watch the interviews in which young workers complain about pesticide and nicotine poisoning; some risk their job by doing so.After the harvest, tobacco leaves are sent to factories for cigarette production, during which the suffer of mother nature continues. For efficiency concerns, tobacco leaves are dried using artificial heat, and then chemically treated to enhance flavor and proper flammability. Cigarettes rolling require large amounts of paper pulp: it takes 1 full tree to make just 300 cigarettes, and 5.5 trillion cigarettes are produced each year. Once rolled, cut, blended, the cigarettes are sealed in a plastic cellophane and a cardboard container. During these steps, mass amounts of energy are used by industrial equipment such as heaters and cutters. However, that is nothing compared to the millions of tons of hazardous pollutants discharged into the marine system. It contributes to the fact that many sea creatures are becoming suicidal.

Distribution of cigarettes is also bad for sustainability. Transportation between farms, treatment centers, factories and retailers requires heavy duty trucks and cargo ships, even planes for more valuable brands. A lot of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, which accelerates the global warming. Some might argue that the distribution of cigarettes are just the same as that of other merchandises. True, but not all merchandises are as toxic as cigarettes at every step of its life cycle.

Finally, once the cigarette is done polluting our body, the cigarette butt goes on to pollute the environment. Only 15% of cigarette butts end up in a designated waste container, remaining 85% are flicked into our environment, and it has become the most commonly littered item around the world. The core of most cigarette butts looks like white cotton, but it is in fact cellulose acetate, which is a form of plastic. It can take up to 10 years to degrade, and while slowly degrading, it is constantly releasing toxins into the ground, the waterway, and damaging living organisms.

Tobacco industry profits are not only built on a dreadful legacy of death and disease caused by consumption of cigarettes but also made at a major cost to our environment. If the tobacco industry was made to pay for the harm that it causes, it would not turn a profit.