Smoking and Environment

Passive smoking kills 600,000 people worldwide annually. Cigarettes produce toxic secondhand smoke that harms not only human beings. It endangers the environment.

About 5.5 trillion cigarettes are produced globally every year – a staggering number. With such a level of production, it comes as no surprise that cigarette butts are the most commonly littered item. They make up more than one-third – about 38% – of all collected litter.

Smokers don’t realize how much damage they cause to the earth they live on. When they decide to quit and start looking for motivation, they learn a lot about their habit’s consequences. Those who fail to give up smoking “cold turkey” decide to find alternative methods that are safer for their health and the environment. Some opt for a vape starter kit. Is it really a better option? Let’s see.

Why Is Smoking Hazardous to Our Planet?

If you are a smoker, read this part carefully and think over this information. Tobacco products damage the environment in 5 ways:

  1. Deforestation

An astounding amount of trees are cut down to manufacture cigarettes – over 540 million. They are chopped down to cure tobacco, make paper tubes, filter and cardboard packaging. To produce just 300 cigarettes, a whole tree is being wasted.

Thousands of hectares of forest disappear due to the tobacco industry interests, mainly in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Elimination of trees greatly contributes to global warming.

  1. Desertification

The tobacco plant is very susceptible to pests and disease. To achieve proper growth, farmers spray the plants with various chemicals and pesticides. Moreover, intensive cultivation of tobacco depletes essential nutrients from the soil. The long-term farming and the absence of crop rotation disrupts the nutrient balance of soil and can eventually lead to desertification.

  1. Filthy Air, Water and Ground.

Smokers around the world spew out 84,878 tons of particulate air pollution annually. This is about 50% of the amount produced by all cars in the United States. Poisonous compounds present in smoke mess up the ozone layer that protects us, harming human and animal life.

Millions of the cigarette butts end up floating in rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans. Dirty water can leave water habitants pooped.

Land pollution is also a worrying issue. Cigarette butts take about 12 years to decompose. So, they lie on the ground, the toxins leach out and harm wildlife.

  1. Fires

Carelessly discarded cigarette butts are the reason of 10% of the global forest fires. It’s sad to realize that not only forests but its inhabitants die in the fire from the acts of human carelessness. And the renewal of these ecosystems takes a long time.

Smoking is also the leading cause of home fires and fire deaths. The best way to prevent this is, of course, quitting.

  1. Threatening the Animals.

Cigarettes smoke contains about 4,000 chemicals. Butts that are often tossed in water contain the toxic residue. Seabirds, turtles and fish can accidentally ingest them along with the toxins. It leads to dangerous or even fatal consequences. The butts swell in the stomach, the animal feels false satiation, stops eating and eventually starves to death.

Cigarette butts discarded on the ground also pose a hazard for small animals. Ingestion of one butt will not cause a toxic dose but can lead to nicotine poisoning.

Is Vaping Dangerous for The Environment?

There are significant benefits of using a vape starter kit(look at more info) when it comes to saving the environment. Here they are:

  1. More Trees Are Safe.

There are no statistical data on the total use of tree derived products by vape manufacturing. But it is clear that the number is very small in comparison with traditional cigarettes production. The only place paper is used is in packaging. In fact, no wood is needed to craft electronic smoking devices.

  1. Less Waste.

Of course, vaping creates some waste. Vapers replace cartomizers and have to deal with empty bottles of e-liquids and batteries that are gone out.

However, responsible users don’t discard lithium-ion batteries and know that packaging and bottles can be recycled or reused. That means that the volume of trash is reduced drastically in comparison with tobacco. Even if the e-cig waste appears in an improper place, they don’t keep poisoning the environment the way butts do.

Vaping also eliminates the number of plastic lighters scattered in streets, parks, shores, and other places.

  1. Cleaner Air.

Vape kits are marketed as a healthier alternative to smoking as users inhale “harmless water vapor”, not a toxic tobacco smoke.

Vaping is not a well-researched subject. But several studies have already proven that it is safer than smoking. One research claims that the e-vapor contains nearly the same level of potentially harmful substance as the ambient air that most of us breathe every day when we go outside.

Many researchers agree that e-cigs are not as dangerous as regular cigarettes. Gerry Stimson, a public health social scientist at Imperial College London, comments, “When you burn vegetable matter, you inhale lots of nasty things into your lungs.” E-cigarettes heat a liquid instead of burning tobacco, he says, that’s why it creates fewer risky particles.

  1. No Fire Risks.

Since vaping doesn’t involve combustion, you can forget about the cigarette burns on your furniture and car seats. If you fall asleep with a vaporizer in your hand, that won’t burn your house down.

So, thebest vape will benefit the nature greatly. But it’s important to mention that some vape products are harmful to animals and children. Have you ever read the labels on your vape juices? They clearly state: “keep away from children and pets”.

Most juices contain nicotine. Consuming it causes extremely dangerous consequences. While most e-juice bottles are child-proof, pets can bite through the packing using their sharp teeth. So, always keep e-liquids somewhere where your kids or pets can’t get it.

The Earth was designed to provide us with everything we need naturally. We should take care of it in order to get enough.

 

Shweta
Shwetahttps://www.scoopify.org
Loves to write and keen learner to approaches follow.

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