Environmental Impacts of Smoking Essay

Introduction

Cigarettes are compounds that include hundreds of chemicals. It is not easy to leave smoking though beginning it happens very quickly. The cigarette users become addicted to it for a short time because of nicotine's component and cannot get rid of it. The legal age for smoking is 18 in almost every country. Besides, the average age to begin smoking is younger. Smoking does not have palpable benefits for the user yet; it has various harms that are not specific for just users but include passive smokers, animals, plants, and the environment. In this paper, we will handle some harmful examples of cigarette smoking on the environment, the economic impacts, and the health problems by mentioning some research.

Body Paragraphs

The cigarette users finish a cigarette in a few minutes; however, its production process takes days and perhaps weeks. Cigarette users increase every day around the world. This requires planting more tobacco plants over the world. The forests have been cleared for tobacco plantation; therefore, the process of preparing the tobacco to become cigarettes causes deforestation directly. Approximately 11 million metric tons of wood are used for tobacco curing (World Health Organization, 2017). The tobacco planting, therefore, negatively impacts the forest ecosystem. As a result, it causes soil erosion because it leaves the soil poorly protected from the wind and water.

Another essential impact of cigarettes on the environment is absolutely pollution, including air and land pollution. The production process and cigarette smoking leave great pollutants to the atmosphere (Conserve Energy Future, para 20). The air pollution begins with the industrial manufacturing process, where tobacco farms leave greenhouse gases to produce energy. The pollution continues every second as the users exhale smoke that includes various harmful chemicals. The components of cigarettes include detrimental pollutants to the land and soil. These pollutants prevent the fertilization of the soil (Conserve Energy Future, para 22).

When we look at the economic impacts of cigarette smoking, we can see that our money is affected negatively compared to those who do not smoke. It is obvious to every people that cigarettes cause health problems. Smokers spend money every day to buy these hazardous things just because we cannot get rid of it. It is a kind of paradox. Smokers work to earn money. They spend that money to harm their body. And when things get serious, they spend money to get healthy again. For instance, in the US, between the proportion of 6% and 18% in different states, people spend money on health care costs. In the UK, people directly cost smoking between £2-5 billion in a year (Victor, Abraham, 2015).

Last and the most important argument we will handle is the impacts of smoking on human health. People pay more attention to their health problems caused by tobacco more than the environmental impacts and economic issues. There is not any substantial component of cigarettes. The use of tobacco and tobacco products, especially cigarettes, causes essential diseases such as cancer, autoimmune disorders, heart attack, premature deaths for the human body (Karaman, 2019). The smokers affect people around them by exhaling the cigarette’s smoke. According to the World Health Organization’s data, Tobacco kills more than 8 million people every year. And about 1 million deaths are the result of non-smokers (WHO, 2020).

Some of the cigarette smokers mention the effect of smoking on diabetes. They claim that the cigarette reduces the risk of diabetes. When we look at cigarette smokers worldwide, we can see that they are usually not girthy. Nicotine affects reducing appetite. However, this does not prove the effect of cigarettes on diabetes by just itself. Because there are also some examples of people who are high-weighted and smoke cigarettes, it is almost impossible to claim any positive impact of cigarettes on the human body. Arguing opposite thoughts to our argument about the economic impact of cigarettes meet that the use of cigarettes helps for the country's GDP. The governments get taxes from smokers. And these taxes play a vital part in GDP. For instance, in China, the tobacco industry's taxes are almost 7-8% of collected government revenues (Victor, Abraham, 2015). This thought does not match directly with ours because we highlighted the economic impacts on the individuals, not on the industrial firms that are making tobacco trades.

Conclusion

In conclusion, tobacco products, especially cigarettes, have a negative impact on human health, secondly on the environment, and lastly on economic costs. Three of them are connected. Cigarette smokers own an essential part of the world's population. The hazardous components of tobacco harm themselves and affect other people, animals, land, and the earth's air. Cigarette addiction does not have any positive impact on anyone or anything. Health organizations should put more effort into trying to prevent addiction. Tobacco products may be the biggest killers on earth.

References

Ekpu, V. U., & Brown, A. K. (2015, July 14). The Economic Impact of Smoking and Reducing Smoking Prevalence: Review of Evidence. Tobacco use insights.

Karaman, M. İ. (2019, July 3). Smoking as an Environmental Health Problem. International Journal of Human and Health Sciences, 03(03), 123–126.

RinkeshA true environmentalist by heart . Founded Conserve Energy Future with the sole motto of providing helpful information related to our rapidly depleting environment. Unless you strongly believe in Elon Musk‘s idea of making Mars as another habitable. (2020, August 1). 13 Serious Effects of Cigarette Smoking on Environment and Human Health. Conserve Energy Future.

World Health Organization. (2017, May 30). Tobacco and its environmental impact: an overview. World Health Organization.

World Health Organization. (2020, May 27). Tobacco. World Health Organization.