As the price of a package of cigarettes keeps on increasing, you are seriously considering quitting, both for your health (and that of your loved ones), but mostly for your purse. But why not quit simply for environmental reasons?

Photo credits: Puzzlement / Flickr / CC

Smoking pollutes

Smokers are polluters. Throughout their lifecycle, cigarettes are polluting, first because of their production. Besides, intensive tobacco cultivation causes deforestation, and tobacco curing discharges CO₂. Rivers become polluted because of fertilizers and other insecticides that are used to produce tobacco. Not to mention all the chemicals contained in a cigarette (tar, nitrogen oxide, ammonia, etc.). According to the WHO, one cigarette butt out of three is thrown on the floor, which is not an eco-friendly gesture! In Paris, cigarette butts represent 315 tons of garbage each year, and lead to water pollution in the city’s sewers. We must keep in mind it takes twelve years for a cigarette butt to disappear completely, for it is not easily biodegradable. To ease this problem, Paris town hall has installed 10,000 snuffers on the Parisian thrash bin, to urge smokers not to throw their cigarette butts on the ground.

More information about tobacco and some advice to quit smoking (in French).

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