‘It’s poisoning our planet’

The tobacco industry is a far greater threat than many realise as it is one of the world's biggest polluters, from leaving mountains of waste to driving global warming, the WHO said yesterday.

In its report released on World No Tobacco Day, the UN agency called for the tobacco industry to be held to account and foot the bill for the cleanup.

The report, "Tobacco: poisoning our planet", looks at the impacts of the whole cycle, from the growth of plants to the manufacturing of tobacco products, to consumption and waste.

While tobacco's health impacts have been well documented for decades -- with smoking still causing more than eight million deaths worldwide every year -- the report focuses on its broader environmental consequences.

The findings are "quite devastating," Ruediger Krech, WHO director of health promotion, told AFP, charging that the industry is "one of the biggest polluters that we know of."

"Tobacco is not only poisoning people, it's poisoning our planet," he added.

The industry is responsible for the loss of some 600 million trees each year -- or five percent of global deforestation -- while tobacco growing and production uses 200,000 hectares of land and 22 billion tonnes of water annually, the report found. It also emits around 84 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, it said.

In addition, "tobacco products are the most littered item on the planet, containing over 7,000 toxic chemicals, which leech into our environment when discarded," Krech said.

He pointed out that each one of the estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette butts that end up in the oceans, rivers, sidewalks and beaches every year can pollute 100 litres of water.

At the same time the processing and transportation of tobacco account for a significant share of global greenhouse gas emissions -- with the equivalent of one-fifth of the global airline industry's carbon footprint.

In addition, products like cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes also contribute significantly to the global build-up of plastic pollution, WHO warned.

Stressing that there is no evidence filters provide any proven health benefits over smoking non-filtered cigarettes, the UN agency urged policy makers worldwide to consider banning them.