The killing of a human being as an inhabitant of the Earth can have some domino effect on the environment.
We are used to hear that smoking is killing yourself. Have you ever thought that smoking may be destroying the environment? CNN says that about 7 million people a year die because of smoking.
SMOKING HARMS YOUR HEALTH.
Tobacco can badly influence our:
● The respiratory system is the first to suffer. Smoking can cause bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and even cancer. This is because tobacco contains a lot of terribly harmful tars and nicotine. Moreover, during the process of smoking many 'new' chemicals appear in the tobacco smoke (e.g., Methanol, Vinyl Chloride, Chromium, Ammonia, etc.). Although, for instance, during vaporizing some vape liquid no new chemicals are formed.
● One of the scariest thing about smoking is the state of mind of a person. All of us know that this may cause addiction, which in its turn may be the very first step to some rash acts. Sometimes we can speak of suck rash act as killing or suicide.
● It is also essential to think about your reproductive system, because smoking may lead to sterility. Smoking can also be a reason for preterm delivery, small weight and health problems in a newly born baby. This is why pregnant women are likely not to smoke.
● The skin is also under threat. We usually see that people, who smoke have yellowish nails, and they are pale. Whereas you can prevent this from happening by using e-cigs with organic vape juice. This is convenient to change and would never make your nails yellowish.
● The circulation of the blood suffers from pressure boots, arteriostenosis. Also, smoking may lead to blood-stroke or heart attack.
● The digestive apparatus takes pains because of possible malfunction or even ulcer of the stomach.
● The mouth cavity is vulnerable to many things, among which there is inflammation of the gum and oral cavity cancer. This happens because our mouth and skin are the first organs to contact with the cigarette.
WHAT IS IMPORTANT:
smoking is completely harmful, and it does not matter whether you smoke yourself or enjoy the company of people who smoke. Second-hand smoking can lead to huge problems as well. Scientists register about 1 million deaths annually, 28% of which are children. Scientists conducted a lot of researches and concluded that e-cigs with vape juice flavors are safer than smoking, though it may not be as same as other nicotine replacement products.
So now we know how does it influence our body and we can add more insight to the problem. Cigarette smoking causes environmental pollution not only by releasing toxic air pollutants into the atmosphere. Everything starts far before the cigarette is in your hand.
SMOKING HARMS OUR PLANET:
● The first thing is that most of the tobacco plantings are situated in rainforest areas. As the call for cigarettes grow and manufacturer want to get more money, we face with total deforestation in the areas of planting tobacco. The very first sequences of deforestation are soil erosion, the inability of various plants to forage, the loss of biodiversity of some sorts of plants, and increasing global temperatures as a result of everything that was mentioned above. On the other hand, the vaping industry, for example, almost uses no trees, only for packaging and labels of different vape flavors.
● The second step to destroy the planet is the process of growing tobacco. Cultivation of the plant, cure if something happens; at least transporting millions of tonnes of tobacco itself pushes the processes of polluting the environment. Manufacturers use vast amounts of many toxic chemicals (pesticides and fertilizers among which dithane DF, imidacloprid, 1-, 3-dichloropropene, chlorpyrifos, and methyl bromide). All these chemicals are utterly harmful to plants, animals, and humans because these elements pollute soil and land. Besides, when the cigarette itself is produced, manufacturers use many materials, among them is, for instance, cellulose acetate for filter production. The problem here is that it is sourced from plastic and is photodegradable. What does it mean? UV light breaks filters into pieces, but the ingredients (those small pieces) still are stored in the soil for up to ten years. So as long as these parts of the former filter are in the soil, it is polluted. The higher is the generation and use of toxic chemicals, the higher the risks we have.
● What comes third is air pollution. During the process of production and farming tobacco. Any of tobacco production factories emit an enormous amount of greenhouse gases from the fossil fuel, which they use to get energy for production. The other example maybe is wood burning fires, which are conducted during the curing process. While these fires, they release noxious chemicals into the atmosphere. Also, one of the final stages of production which is transporting also harms the environment by using different transport which emits greenhouse gases.
● The last stage of polluting the environment with the cigarettes is the direct use of it in practice. Actually, not directly the process of smoking badly influence the situation, but the cigarette butts which appear after smoking. People usually litter them everywhere. They throw them away not only in rubbish bin but also on the ground, into the water, etc. In 2008, e. g. Within the International Coastal Cleanup program, the participants coped with clearing about 3,2 million cigarette butts from beaches and waterways. However, a considerable amount of butts still stays in the water. Fish may recognize this as food and eat it. Then they stay in the fish's stomach and reduce its capacity. As for pets, they may either eat a butt or be a second-hand smoker. First can kill your pet quickly by destroying their digestive system. Second can be a reason for developing asthma, lung complications or ever cancer. In comparison, the vape juice flavors can hardly harm anybody. The only thing to remember is not to give it to children or pets because they may try to drink it, which is terrible because those vape liquids may contain a high concentration of nicotine.
● The other significant problem is that a butt left in the forest may become a reason of many terrible wildfires that, firstly, damage forests and make huge areas deserted. Secondly, during the burning, trees and leaves emit some negative microelements. Moreover, a lot of oxygen is burnt while the huge forest is in the fire.
CONCLUSION:
It's clear that quitting smoking hasn't become easier after reading this article. However, you can undertake some actions to prevent yourself from killing the world you live in. The first thing that you can do is checking whether you put all the cigarette butts into the rubbish bin. Secondly, you can try to get rid of the cigarettes in your life at all. Nowadays, there is a lot of possibilities to find a substitution for cigs. The most popular change is e-cigarettes, which means that you would be using vape liquids without nicotine or with a low concentration of it. The other benefits of using vaporizers may be that they are made for long-term use and produce no butts.
My personal opinion is that the best way not to face possible consequences of smoking is to prevent the possibility of their emergence.
About the author:
Margaret Wilson, a blogger who writes about the healthy way of life (healthy food, sports, motivation etc.)
Now she studies vaping as an alternative for people who are struggling with smoking.