World No Tobacco Day draws attention to the environmental consequences of tobacco

Air, water, forest, waste, CO2: the environmental consequences of tobacco production and consumption are phenomenal and little discussed. World No Tobacco Day is an opportunity to take stock of these little-known aspects of the tobacco industry.

World No Tobacco Day is, each year, an opportunity to organize awareness-raising actions and encourage smoking cessation. This year, this day is dedicated to the environment, to remind people of the many consequences of the tobacco market on the environment.

An industry greedy for natural resources

Tobacco production requires significant natural resources. A report from the World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that this production consumes 22 million tonnes of water, 200,000 hectares of arable land and 600 million trees to produce the 6,000 billion cigarettes smoked annually.[1]. This production alone results in the emission of 84 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, or 20% of air traffic emissions. To this will be added emissions from the combustion of the cigarettes themselves, releasing into the atmosphere the 7,000 chemical compounds contained in tobacco smoke, 70 of which are recognized as carcinogenic.

The grabbing of water and land resources is particularly damaging in low- and middle-income countries, where tobacco plantations are mainly located. It takes 3.7 liters of water to make a single cigarette, and 678 liters of water to produce one kilogram of tobacco. Tobacco cultivation is also at the origin of 5 % of global deforestation. It also causes “green tobacco disease”, due to the massive absorption of nicotine, which particularly affects children and women among the workers mobilized for this crop. These workers are also highly exposed to fertilizers and pesticides, used extensively in tobacco cultivation, which is the sixth crop that consumes the most of these chemicals.

A significant production of waste

The tobacco industry is also a major producer of waste. The cigarette filter, which is ineffective in protecting the health of smokers, is made of plastic (cellulose acetate). This filter can therefore be considered a single-use plastic, which should logically call for its disappearance. It is estimated that around 4,500 billion cigarette butts are thrown on the ground each year before ending up in the oceans, making it the second largest type of plastic pollution in the world (40 %).

In addition to these butts, there is waste from cigarette packaging or generated by products other than cigarettes. Electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco devices generate plastic and metal waste, as well as used batteries, which are significantly more polluting and persistent than traditional cigarettes, which are already very polluting. Disposable e-cigarettes peak here in terms of pollution, since they are single-use products containing a battery and chemicals, and often discarded among general waste. Other non-smoked tobacco products are not left out: in India, a study conducted in the state of Tamil Nadu calculated that out of the 8,238 tonnes of annual tobacco waste, nearly 44% of waste was attributable to tobacco. chew, very common in this region[2].

Circumventing the “polluter pays” principle

Cleaning up these cigarette butts and waste has a financial cost, in addition to various ecological costs. According to the WHO, it is estimated at 234 million US dollars in Germany, and 2.6 billion US dollars in China[3]. The application of the “polluter pays” principle would imply that it is the industrialists who contribute financially to treating the waste they generate; In the tobacco sector, these manufacturers are instead trying to relieve themselves of this task by entrusting it to states and smokers.

Although France, along with Spain, is praised by the WHO for its efforts in the treatment of tobacco waste, the French situation is proving problematic in this area. Transposing the European directive on single-use plastics, France in fact entrusted, in August 2021, the management of the collection of cigarette butts to Alcome, an eco-organization founded, financed and directed by the tobacco industry. However, the management of this eco-organization should, to comply with article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), be completely independent of the tobacco industry and simply funded by a specific tax implementation on waste produced by industry[4]. Conversely, the actions proposed by Alcome, whether distributing pocket ashtrays or installing ashtrays in public spaces, aim rather to renormalize tobacco use and encourage consumption.

CSR, a pretext for communication

This transgression of Article 5.3 of the FCTC, which stipulates that public policies must escape the influence of the tobacco industry, is a sign of the intrusion of industrialists into the development of public policies, with a view to perpetuating the tobacco use and to introduce new tobacco and nicotine products. In order to show their “goodwill” and their “citizen commitment”, the tobacco majors have heavily invested, since the beginning of the 2000s, in the field of social and environmental activities, under the cover of corporate social responsibility (CSR). These activities, often more demonstrative than effective, in no way compensate for the environmental damage inflicted by the tobacco industry and on which it does not wish to dwell. Conversely, it prefers to use these CSR activities as communication and promotion supports for its new products. However, in the signatory countries of the FCTC and even more so in those where tobacco advertising is explicitly prohibited, the promotion of tobacco products is in principle not permitted, which should invalidate most CSR operations. The FCTC also contains, in its article 17, a section in which it is expressly requested to facilitate the reconversion to other crops of land allocated to tobacco production, and in its article 18, to grant particular care to environmental issues in the cultivation and production of tobacco products.

The reduction of environmental damage due to tobacco can be considered other than through the options proposed by the industry. Removing filters from cigarettes would, as a first step, be one way to reduce this damage. Reducing the number of smokers and achieving a Tobacco-Free Generation would be another, simpler and more effective way to resolve the multiple costs and consequences linked to tobacco.

Keywords: JMST, World No Tobacco Day, environment, waste, cigarette butts, CSR, Alcome

©Tobacco Free Generation

M.F.

[1] Tobacco: poisoning our planet, WHO, published May 29, 2022, accessed May 31, 2022.

[2] Express News Service, Tobacco leaves more than 8,000 tonne waste trail in Tamil Nadu: Study, The New Indian Express, published on May 30, 2022, accessed on May 31, 2022.

[3] WHO sounds the alarm over the impact of the tobacco industry on the environment, WHO, published May 31, 2022, accessed May 31, 2022.

[4] Alcome: why the eco-organization fighting against cigarette butts poses a problem, Generation without tobacco, published on March 17, 2022, accessed on May 31, 2022.