Be honest: Have you ever wondered about the long term effect a cigarette butt or growing tobacco have on the environment? You haven’t, right? - Well, if it makes you feel any better, I am a Smoking Cessation Specialist, and I have not been fully aware of ALL the consequences myself.

Please check out this amazing report I discovered today.

- Franc Tausch, Ph.D., CCHT

‘People don’t always think of cigarette butts as litter,’ says Ginette Unsworth, spokeswoman for Keep Britain Tidy. ‘Smokers who might not drop any other kind of litter drop cigarette ends because they don’t want to set a bin alight and because they think the ends will biodegrade. But they don’t and they can cause huge problems.’

Most smokers are under the impression that cigarette filters are made of cotton. Instead, they are made from packed fibres of cellulose acetate and take up to a decade to break down. Filters also trap formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide and ‘tar’ - which is the residue of some of the 160 other chemicals in a cigarette.

All of this finds its way into the environment. Cigarette butts on the streets wash away into drains and rivers, and reach our oceans. Worldwide, they’re the most common item of beach litter. Last July, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) teamed up with Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) and naturist campaigners in Brighton for the No Butts On The Beach! campaign, giving away pocket ashtrays on a naturist beach to highlight the issue. ‘We have documented cases where they’ve been found in the guts of whales, dolphins, seabirds, fish and turtles,’ says Emma Snowden, MCS litter projects co-ordinator.

‘Filters also absorb tar and chemicals that can leach into the water. Some experiments have shown that just one cigarette filter is toxic enough to kill water fleas in eight litres of water. That gives an idea of the potential impact it can have.’

Growing tobacco is also damaging. It’s a chemical-heavy process, using vast quantities of fertiliser, herbicides and pesticides, much of which washes away into the environment. The soil is commonly fumigated with methyl bromide, an ozone-depleting chemical, before seedlings are planted.

‘A lot of tobacco companies say they give farmers the best protection but that’s often not the case,’ says Amanda Sandford, research manager at Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).

Tobacco growing and curing processes are a major cause of deforestation, which, in turn, causes erosion. More tobacco crops also mean fewer food crops are being grown, says Sandford. ‘It’s a profitable crop for tobacco companies but not that profitable for farmers, because they tend to be caught in a system that tobacco companies impose on them. They don’t often make a decent living out of it.’

These issues might surprise smokers, Sandford suggests. ‘Many just see the effect of smoking as litter on the street,’ she says. ‘People might be less likely to smoke if they’re fully aware of the environmental, as well as the health, factors.’

For more information, go to http://cigarettelitter.org, Keep Britain Tidy, the MCS or ASH

Source

Tony Schwartz, one of the most influential people in the advertising industry, passed away in June. A few days ago, the Los Angeles Times ran an article on the man who created some of the earliest stop smoking or tobacco control ads.

 This particular paragraph really stuck with me.  (For the entire article click here)

- Franc Tausch

"I was the first one to do commercials for the American Cancer Society dealing with emotions rather than medical facts," Schwartz told the Washington Post in 1983. "They would want people not to smoke, and then do spots showing how your lungs were affected or this and that. I took a different approach. I showed kids playing in their parents’ clothing. You know, the boy and girl dressing up in their parents’ wedding clothes up in the attic, and then we have the announcer say, ‘Children learn by imitating their parents. Pause. Do you smoke cigarettes?’ "

Source