Big tobacco's environmental impact is 'devastating': WHO

GENEVA: The tobacco industry is a far greater threat than many realise as it is one of the world's biggest polluters, from leaving mountains of waste to driving global warming, the WHO charged on Tuesday .

The report,"Tobacco: Poisoning our planet", looks at the impacts of the whole cycle, from the growth of plants to the manufacturing of tobacco products, to consumption and waste. The industry is responsible for the loss of about 600 million trees each year, while tobacco growing and production uses 200,000 hectares of land and 22 billion tonnes of water annually, the report found.In addition,"tobacco products are the most littered item on the planet, containing over 7,000 toxic chemicals, which leech into our environment when discarded," Krech said.

Farmers who handle tobacco leaves all day consume the equivalent of 50 cigarettes worth of nicotine a day, Krech said."Just imagine a 12-year-old being exposed to 50 cigarettes a day," he said. In addition, products like cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes also contribute significantly to the global build-up of plastic pollution, WHO warned.

The UN agency urged policy makers worldwide to treat cigarette filters as single-use plastics, and to consider banning them.

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