Tobacco industry produces 84 million tonnes CO2, containing over 7000 toxic chemical: WHO

New Delhi:World Health Organisation (WHO) revealed that the tobacco industry produced 84 million tonnes of CO2 and costs the world more than eignt million human lives every year.

The WHO report “Tobacco: Poisoning our planet” highlights that the industry’s carbon footprint from production, processing and transporting tobacco is equivalent to one-fifth of the CO2 produced by the commercial airline industry each year, further contributing to global warming.

“Tobacco products are the most littered item on the planet, containing over 7,000 toxic chemicals, which leech into our environment when discarded”, said Dr Ruediger Krech, Director of Health Promotion at WHO.

“Roughly 4.5 trillion cigarette filters pollute our oceans, rivers, city sidewalks, parks, soil and beaches every year” he informed.

The UN agency revealed that the tobacco industry destoryed 600 million trees, 200,000 hectares of land every year in the production of tobaco. It also consumed 22 billion tonnes of water in the production of tobacco.

“Products like cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes also add to the build-up of plastic pollution. Cigarette filters contain microplastics and make up the second-highest form of plastic pollution worldwide” it said.

The WHO is also called upon the policy-makers to treat cigarette filters the same as any other single-use plastic, and consider banning them, to protect public health and the environment: despite tobacco industry marketing, there is no evidence that filters have any proven health benefits.

The costs of cleaning up littered tobacco products fall on taxpayers, rather than the industry creating the problem.

Each year, this costs China roughly $2.6 billion and India roughly $766 million. The cost for Brazil and Germany come in at over $200 million.

However, countries like France and Spain and cities like San Francisco, California in the USA are taking a stand. Following the “polluter pays” principle, they have successfully implemented legislation which makes the tobacco industry responsible for clearing up the pollution it creates.

WHO urges countries and cities to follow this example, as well as give support to tobacco farmers to switch to sustainable crops, implement strong tobacco taxes and offer support services to help people quit tobacco.