Every year, according to the World Health Organization, 600 million trees are chopped down and 22 billion tons of water used to make cigarettes. Smoking releases 84 million tons of carbon dioxide annually into the atmosphere, the WHO added, while 766,571 metric tons of cigarette butts with filters using single-use microplastics pollute the environment.
E-cigarette waste, which is not biodegradable, is even more harmful as vaporizers contain metal, circuitry, single-use plastic cartridges, batteries and toxic chemicals.
As the world marks No-Tobacco Day on May 31, the WHO is reminding the COVID-battered planet that tobacco use kills over eight million people every year, and further harms human health through environmental degradation. The WHO is also decrying the industry’s “greenwashing” of the harm tobacco is inflicting on the health of humans and the planet.
President Duterte, who suffers from the smoking-related Buerger’s disease, will be remembered for banning smoking in public places during his watch. He is being urged by the top medical associations plus his secretary of health to veto a bill that liberalizes access to vapes.
To mark this year’s No-Tobacco Day, the WHO is prodding governments to encourage and support tobacco farmers to switch to alternative and more sustainable livelihoods. An estimated 3.5 million hectares of land are cleared each year for tobacco growing, contributing to deforestation. About 90 percent of the farms are in developing countries such as the Philippines.
Promoting crop switching and alternative livelihoods through executive action and legislation could be a challenge for the incoming president, whose bailiwick is the country’s tobacco-producing Ilocos region. On the other hand, he has the needed political capital to persuade tobacco farmers to begin a gradual shift to products that are kind to both human and environmental health. Ilocos Norte takes pride in pursuing green policies, including alternative energy such as wind power.
The WHO stresses that the harmful impacts of tobacco use along with the industry’s “greenwashing” will impede the attainment of certain sustainable development goals. As this year’s theme for the special day emphasizes, “tobacco is killing us and our planet.”