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Ten Ways Tobacco Hurts Our Environment
1. 2,000 sq. kilometers of forests and woodlands are lost to tobacco farming each year.1
2. 25.6 million pounds of pesticides are used on U.S. tobacco crops every year.2
3. Approximately 11.4 million tons of wood are used globally each year in tobacco production.1
4. A modern cigarette manufacturing machine uses 4 miles of paper every hour.1
5. Over 350,000 tons of paper are used each year just to wrap cigarettes.1
6. The global tobacco industry produces huge amounts of manufacturing, chemical and nicotine waste every day. In the US, the tobacco industry ranks 18th among all industries in the production of chemical waste.1
7. An international cleanup effort found that cigarette butts outnumbered other waste items by a ratio of 3:1.1
8. At least 4.5 trillion cigarette filters are deposited in the world every year. Many of these filters are non-biodegradable.1
9. The drying process of tobacco leaves requires about one tree for every 300 cigarettes.3
10. One out of every four tobacco growing countries donít have enough trees to support their fuel needs due to tobacco related deforestation.4
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1 Dozois, Elizabeth & Kneeshaw Ralamy. (2001). ATRA Handbook: Tobacco Basics 2001 Edition. ATRA.
2 Hickey, Ellen & Chan, Yenyen. (1998). Tobacco, Farmers and Pesticides: The Other Story. Pesticide Action Network North America.
3 Chapman, Simon. (1997). Tobacco and Deforestation in the Developing World. Tobacco Control.
3:191-3.
4 Weissman, Robert. (1999). New Study on Tobacco and Deforestation. Tobacco Control.
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