Greenkama

Cigarettes as an environmental problem: The fact check

Author: Andre Wolf

Article image: Shutterstock / By Dario Lo Presti
Article image: Shutterstock / By Dario Lo Presti

Now it's becoming unpopular, but unfortunately facts aren't always pleasant. It's about cigarettes and the environment, because unfortunately there is a sad connection.

Anyone who has smoked or smokes cigarettes regularly in their life raises their imaginary hand. Anyone who has already carelessly disposed of a cigarette on the floor after smoking can now raise their second hand in an imaginary way. The fact that I, as the author of this article, can now write is no wonder, but is because, fortunately, we should only raise our hands imaginatively.

Personally, it seems like a bit of a trivial matter. An insignificance, an absolutely tolerated behavior: Cigarettes are often simply thrown away like that. On the street, in parks, on beaches or any other public place. There is hardly any counter-argument, there is very little awareness. Incidentally, cigarette butts and take-away packaging are the two most frequently improperly disposed of items [1].

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But unfortunately one thing is certain: cigarettes (and especially the filters) are poison! Not just for people, but also for the environment. There is nothing to shake. So let's take a look at why cigarettes are a real environmental problem.

Cigarette environmental problem
Cigarette environmental problem

According to a report by the World Health Organization (WHO), two thirds of all cigarette butts end up on the ground [2]. This is of course a statistical value, and there are those in the world who throw more cigarettes on the ground and those who throw fewer away carelessly.

With up to two-thirds of every smoked cigarette discarded onto the ground, between 340 and 680 million kilograms of waste tobacco product litters the world each year.

But let's briefly go back to the questions mentioned at the beginning and remember who raised both hands imaginarily. This is how we know that it is happening. It's also no problem to start the field test: Please go to public places and see for yourself where there are cigarette butts between pavement slabs, around public trash cans, on roadsides, sidewalks and so on - and also how many, because this is where it gets exciting.

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Cigarette toxic

The filters of a cigarette in particular contain many toxic elements, even more so after smoking than before, as they are doing their job and filtering out elements from the smoke. There are several thousand elements in the filter, of which 250 are toxic [3].

[…] Around 250 substances in tobacco smoke are considered toxic, around 100 of which are even carcinogenic. Many of these pollutants accumulate in the filter stubs, especially nicotine, arsenic and various heavy metals.

Filters absorb up to 50% of the toxins from the cigarette, including nicotine and substances such as arsenic, lead, copper, chromium and cadmium [4]. Once on the ground and ignored, these toxins are flushed out and, depending on where they are located, end up in the groundwater, rivers, lakes or the sea. How appetizing this is can be seen in the video “Environmental poison cigarette butts – nicotine in drinking water | Watch “Breaking Lab”.

Then I just smoke cigarettes without a filter!

Yes, this of course eliminates the filter problem, but cigarettes still remain an environmental problem because tobacco cultivation itself is a problem. Tobacco cultivation is a sensitive monoculture. In order to create areas for tobacco, land must be cleared. A lot of water is also used to irrigate the plants. From the Frankfurter Rundschau we learn [5]:

To produce one ton of raw tobacco, almost 3,000 cubic meters of water are required. That's more than twice as much as corn.

According to another study by the World Health Organization, at least 6,500 hectares of forest are cleared every year for tobacco cultivation or tobacco drying [6]. These areas deplete the soil and ultimately destroy it through monocultural farming.

The Frankfurter Rundschau article reveals even more: tobacco is susceptible to pests and leaf diseases. This means that the plant is treated accordingly with pesticides. Katrin Schaller from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg has her say on this in the article:

“Overall, tobacco is a complex plant that requires a lot of pesticides. […] And it is mainly grown in developing and emerging countries where environmental regulations are not particularly high or are simply not adhered to.”

These are just some of the problematic points in cigarette production, more about this in the Frankfurter Rundschau .

And now?

Yes, the solution is unfortunately unpopular, but unfortunately the facts here are not pleasant. Cigarettes are an environmental problem. We at Mimikama , especially me as the author of the article, who initially raised both imaginary hands, don't want to lecture anyone. It's more about noticing for yourself what you can do.

However, the WWF gives a few tips on what you can do [7]:

 

  • Stop smoking. If not: Butts don't belong anywhere but in the trash. Then they can be burned.
  • In nature, on the beach, far from a trash can: Use a pocket ashtray. Our water is in bad enough shape.
  • If you roll: There are unbleached cigarette filters made from cellulose. At least a little better. Buy those.
  • Your friends smoke? And throw their butts on the street? It doesn't work at all. Say something.
  • Btw: carelessly throwing away cigarette butts is a misdemeanor. And means: fine. Incidentally, this can be much higher on vacation in the Mediterranean than in Germany.

 

Sources:

Article image: Shutterstock / By Dario Lo Presti

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Notes:

1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication
.
The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual articles (not fact checks) were created using machine help and
were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )


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