We all know that smoking is harmful to the human body. We’re heavily warned against the effects to our bodies; but a lesser known consequence, is the major effects that smoking is having on the world around us.
Colossal environmental effects of deforestation, desertification and water pollution are felt before the cigarette has even been consumed. With astonishing levels of land flattened for the growth of tobacco, chemicals must then be spread on this land, blazing furnaces are heated to cure the tobacco and huge volumes of the manufactured cigarettes are then shipped worldwide. From the sky down to the ground and sea, the production of cigarettes is having detrimental effects.
After production, you might think the effects from the consumption of a cigarette are confined to the smoker themselves and those in their immediate surroundings, but this is not true. Just one cigarette butt is enough to kill a fish living in a 1 litre container of water, and when approximately 3,216,991 cigarettes or cigarette butts were collected from beaches and inland waterways in 2009, you can see how destructive smoking can be under the sea.
In this infographic, Grey Haze take a look at just how much damage smoking does to the environment and highlight some of the shocking statistics surrounding recklessly discarded cigarette butts too.
