Posted On: 2022-05-31 15:15:23
India is the second-largest tobacco producer behind China. The country has around 0.45 million hectares of area under tobacco cultivation. This accounts for 9% of total tobacco production around the world. The most commonly used and smokeless tobacco products in India are:
Smoking forms of tobacco commonly used in India are:
When we say tobacco, the first thing that comes to our minds is its ill effects on the human body. Smoking tobacco in any form causes cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis. It also increases the risk of tuberculosis, many eye illnesses, and immune system issues such as rheumatoid arthritis.
Interestingly, when people hear about cigarette smoking, they often think of the health risks it has on the human body. Many people miss the important side issue of how it affects the environment. Right from tobacco farming, and manufacturing tobacco products, to its consumption, tobacco has harmful effects on the environment.
The tobacco epidemic is one of the world's most serious public health issues. Today we celebrate 'World No-Tobacco Day.' The day was created in 1987 by World Health Organization (WHO) member states to raise public awareness about the effects that tobacco products have on people, public health, communities, and the environment.
Every year, the World No-Tobacco Day campaign focuses on a different issue in the tobacco industry. The theme for this year is 'Tobacco: Threat to our environment'
Threat to our environment
Tobacco damages our environment in not one but many ways.
1. Deforestation
WHO studies reveal that every year, 200,000 hectares of natural forests are lost around the world to tobacco farming. Tobacco is a significant component in the production of cigarettes, and the majority of it is grown in tropical rainforests. As a result, it has caused significant deforestation in the places where it is planted. Areas, where tobacco planting began on small lands, are now extensively covering large fields, and some of such places were covered by very dense forest.
2. Tonnes of Toxic Waste
According to studies, approximately 5.5 trillion cigarettes are generated each year. Not disposing of the cigarette appropriately has occurred as a major issue. Cigarette butts create 1.69 billion pounds of toxic waste, releasing thousands of chemicals into the air, water and soil.
Aldicarb is one of the most commonly utilised compounds in the manufacturing process. It's extremely harmful to humans, plants, and animals, and it can contaminate waterways and soil for years.
3. Soil and Land Pollution
The high scores of pesticides, fertilizers and other chemicals used in the cultivation of tobacco introduce volumes of hazardous pollutants to the land and soils. These pollutants build up over time, reducing soil fertility and making the land unsuitable for cultivating any other crops.
On the other hand, the majority of the chemicals in cigarette butts are non-biodegradable and require years to degrade. The ingredients in the filter of cigarettes, therefore, remain in the soil for a long period of time, up to 10 years. As long as they are present in the soil, the soil remains polluted.
4. Air Pollution
The industrial processing and smoking of cigarettes add huge volumes of air pollutants into the atmosphere. Second-hand smoke pollutes the air directly, and the manufacturing process releases toxins into the atmosphere in a variety of ways.
Air pollution starts right in the tobacco farms where the machines used emit greenhouse gases from the fossil fuel combusted to produce energy. Smoking globally emits nearly 2.6 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide and 5.2 billion kilograms of methane into the atmosphere each year.
This provides a clear picture of how smoking alone contributes to climate change
5. Water Pollution
Cigarette butts are found everywhere on the ground, and they frequently end up in waterways when washed away by rainfall or when they wind up near shorelines or in wetlands.
According to the Ocean Conservancy, cigarette butts are the most frequent waste material, and a large percentage of them wind up in international water systems, specifically oceans.
Fishes have particularly been impacted by cigarettes in countless ways. Whenever cigarette filters find a way into water systems, they can be ingested by fish because they resemble fish food like insects. The filters remain within the fish, reducing their stomach capacity, thus affecting their eating patterns.
Tobacco products are the most littered item on the planet, containing over 7000 toxic chemicals, which leech into our environment when discarded.
Apart from these issues;
are other issues that tobacco farming and manufacturing its products that need to be addressed.
There is a need to address the issues that tobacco consumption causes.
Hence, WHO's World No-Tobacco Day Campaign 2022 urges governments and policymakers to enhance legislation, including implementing and strengthening current systems that hold tobacco companies accountable for the environmental and economic costs of dealing with waste tobacco.
WHO also recommends that countries fully ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, including advertising CSR programmes, in accordance with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC).
One of the major impacts of tobacco on human health is that it causes various types of cancer. Cancer treatments are expensive and time-consuming. Yet the results are unsure. People with low income and financial instability struggle a lot to gather the money that the treatment for cancer is required. At such difficult times, fundraising can be one of the secure ways to raise funds, especially online fundraising.
Filaantro is one such online crowdfunding platform that fundraises for all and every cause that one truly believes in and is genuine. With medical fundraising being the flagship program, Filaantro helps such cancer patients and their families to raise the funds required for expensive treatment for cancer.
Sunil Fernandes is a cancer patient from Karnataka. He has stage four mouth cancer. He underwent 37 radiations and 6 chemotherapies since 2020. During these surgeries, his upper and lower jaws on one side of his mouth were removed. Reconstruction surgery is needed to fix his jaw. The estimated cost of the treatment is ? 1,00,000/-. He is the sole breadwinner of the family but is not able to work for many months now.
With zero income and hefty expenses, his family is left with no way to gather money for the surgery. Please help them during this difficult time.
Visit https://filaantro.org/fundraiser/view/support-dolly to donate.
Author: Anjali Patel
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