The effects of smoking and its associated industry and production sectors aren't limited to the human species. A smoker, through buying, smoking and disposing of tobacco products and their associated waste products, is part of an industry that has a whole slew of negative impacts on the environment.
Deforestation
As new land is cleared for tobacco cultivation, natural habitats suffer. Statistics cited by an article on Treehugger.com, an environmental news website, assert that in Africa clearing activities to clear land to grow tobacco cause nearly 5 percent of all deforestation. In Malawi, a country known for its ancient dry forests in its miombo highlands that host African elephants and black rhinos, tobacco accounts for 20 percent of deforestation.
Chemical Inputs During Tobacco Cultivation
The cultivation of huge fields of tobacco often involves significant chemical treatments as growers try to maximize profits in a global economy. According to figures cited in the Treehugger article, during a particular three-month growing period up to 16 applications of pesticide are recommended. Chemicals recommended include Aldrin, a persistent organic pollutant banned in many places because of its tendency to accumulate in generations of animal body tissues, and DDT, largely banned in the United States since 1973 because of its association with declines in many species of bird populations.
Pollution of Personal Environments of Others
According to the American Lung Association, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates secondhand smoke--which contains over 4,000 chemicals, 43 of which are known cancer-causing agents--causes approximately 53,800 deaths in nonsmokers each year. Clean air is a right, yet smokers are often unwilling or unable to control the drift of their smoke fumes at all times, leading to contamination of the breathing air of others.
Cigarette Butts As Hazardous Waste
Researchers in 1999 released a study on the "environmental blight" of cigarette butts, noting that as a form of non-biodegradeable litter cigarette filters are the single most collected item in international beach cleanups each year, and observing that few efforts have been made by cigarette manufacturers to develop biodegradeable filters or by public policymakers to increase littering fines.
Production and Manufacturing Resource Demands
The sheer mass of cigarettes manufactured has an impact on the environment as well, both from the amount of paper needed to wrap the tobacco and filter and also from the energy consumed during the manufacturing process. Figures cited by the Treehugger article note that each hour more than 6 km of paper are used per hour by modern cigarette manufacturers alone, while each year 11.4 million tons of solid wood are required annually to cure tobacco.
