Smoking – Responsible For Environmental Damage Too

Smoking not only affects the health of the smoker, but also of people and the environment surrounding the smoker. Smoking causes land, water, and air pollution. Many nonsmokers become victims of passive smoking.

Most smokers think that they are only ruining their own health by smoking. They are not aware about the fact that smoking affects other’s health indirectly. Smokers contribute directly to environmental pollution. Every smoker should be aware of the environmental problems caused by smoking. 

Passive smoking

People, who smoke, affect the health of those around them. Millions of deaths are caused every year because of smoking, and thousands because of passive smoking. People around smokers are forced to inhale smoke from the smoker’s cigarettes and become victims of passive smoking. Passive smoking causes cough, sore throats, sneezing, runny noses and nausea. Smokers inhale only 15% of the smoke, while the remaining 85% is left in the surrounding air for other people!

Smoking causes air pollution

It is evident that air pollution is caused by smoking. A burning cigarette is as good as a mini chemical factory. Cigarette smoke contains around 4000 chemicals, which are released in the atmosphere. People who are getting addicted to smoking and the existing number of smokers, both contribute to the enormous quantity of pollution being released in the atmosphere.

Smoking cause’s land and water pollution

Smoking causes a lot of pollution and that is not confined to only air, but to a certain extent, smoking pollutes land and water too. Smokers leave cigarette butts on the ground after smoking the cigarette, and this way millions of butts are left everyday. These butts end up in rivers, lakes and other water bodies. They contaminate water and cause a threat to fish and other water animals. Cigarette butts take around 25 years to decompose. Chemicals present in the butts affect plants and other vegetation too.

Cigarette production affects the environment

Production of cigarettes has a big impact on the environment. Land, which is used for cultivation of tobacco, can be used for producing healthy food. Most importantly, the susceptibility of the tobacco plants to pests is high. Various chemicals are sprayed on it, to maintain proper growth. These chemicals pollute the land. Packing cigarettes also requires many trees. A cigarette-producing unit needs around 4 miles of paper every hour for rolling cigarettes. On an average, one tree is wasted to produce 300 cigarettes. Cutting down trees is one of the biggest threats to the environment. Also, water and energy are also wasted in huge quantities for production of cigarettes. Chemical wastes from the process are dumped into the soil, which causes further degradation of the environment.

Pollution can be reduced by using technologically advanced machines for manufacturing cigarettes. Some firms refuse to switch over to newer machines, to save billions of dollars of profit every year. Smoking is also linked with accidental fire, and deaths because of fire. The best way to stop this environmental destruction is to stop buying cigarettes. Quitting smoking is an effective way to deal with environmental issues. You can reduce smoking side effects and start living a healthy life by quitting smoking. If you are a smoker, quitting smoking will improve your health.

Article Tags: Passive Smoking

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