Tobacco and the environment
The health impacts of tobacco are widely known. What is less well known is the negative impact tobacco use has on the environment.
The production of tobacco products causes widespread environmental degradation beginning with the preparation of land for tobacco cultivation and continues on through the life-cycle of the tobacco products as they are manufactured, marketed and consumed.
Infographic
Video - The plastic problem that no one is talking about: 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are littered every year
📹 Documentary
News
Technical presentations
15 September 2022
Tobacco Industry Accountability
6 July 2022
Smoke-free La Graciosa beach: PMI's greenwashing in a Spanish island and the smoke-free culture certificate
21 June 2022
Tobacco’s global environment footprint
20 June 2022
Tobacco industry tactics around Single Use Plastics (SUP) policies and civil society efforts to countering these
10 June 2022
Economic responsibility for the human and environmental costs of tobacco product waste
10 June 2022
Tobacco is poisoning our planet
📹 Side event - Tobacco product waste: a threat to the environment
Video recording
Side event during the meetings of the conferences of the parties to the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions (bc cop-15, rc cop-10, sc cop-10)
Featured campaign
The environmental issue of tobacco
A campaign from the Secretariat of the WHO FCTC
Campaign materials
Video
Posters
Secretariat of the WHO FCTC
In one year we lose 22 billion tonnes of water to the tobacco industry
In one year we lose 22 billion tonnes of water to the tobacco industry
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Credits
WHO FCTC Secretariat
4.5 trillion cigarette butts are improperly discarded each year = 1.69 billion pounds of toxic trash
4.5 trillion cigarette butts are improperly discarded each year = 1.69 billion pounds of toxic trash
©
Credits
Clean Seas campaign - Face the plastic truth
A joint collaboration between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Secretariat of the WHO FCTC
Face the plastic truth
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Projects
Study visit to examine Brazilian sustainable alternatives to tobacco growing
(Article 17 of the WHO FCTC)
Learn about the project
Stories and campaigns from countries
Resources
Featured meeting report | 1 January 2013
Policy options and recommendations: Article 17 and...
WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
This overview assembles existing evidence on the ways in which tobacco affects human well-being from an environmental perspective – i.e. the indirect social...
2 March 2021
Cigarette smoking: an assessment of tobacco’s global environmental footprint across its entire supply...
Cigarette production and consumption have seen dramatic growth in recent decades and although the health effects of smoking are widely recognized,...
30 April 2017
The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control: an accelerator for sustainable development
This report was authored by Roy Small and Natalia Linou of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), under the overall guidance of Douglas...
1 December 2019
Country practices in the implementation of Article 17
Article 17 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) states that Parties shall, in cooperation with each other and with competent international...
1 January 2017
Viable Alternatives to Tobacco growing: an economic model for implementing Articles 17 and 18
There are 1.1 billion tobacco consumers in the world, which is expected to increase to 1.6 billion by 2035. Consumption of tobacco products is increasing...
Factsheets
Materials from STOP and WHO
Infographic
Dirty Secrets: How the Tobacco Industry Destroys the Environment & Hides It
Brief
Talking Trash: Behind the Tobacco Industry’s “Green” Public Relations
Global Media Competition Winners - STOP (The GGTC)
Editorials