World No Tobacco Day 2022 with AHCSA's Puyu Blasters

Yesterday was World No Tobacco Day and this year’s theme is Tobacco: Threat to Our Environment. While we recognise this as a day to quit tobacco and improve our health outcomes, we don’t want it to be just one day, but instead to be remembered and acted upon all year round.

The harmful impact that the tobacco industry has on the environment is enormous and unfortunately is growing as it adds unnecessary pressure to our planet’s already scarce resources and fragile ecosystems.

The truth is, tobacco kills over 8 million people every year and destroys our environment, further harming human health, through farming practices, production, distribution, consumption and post-consumer waste.

This gives us a great opportunity to help ourselves by stopping smoking, while also ensuring that we don’t continue to pollute Mother Earth.

We know that cigarette butts being discarded are one of the most harmful things for our environment and can have disastrous effects as the butts cause pollution to be carried as a runoff to drains and from there to rivers, beaches and oceans.

Studies show that compounds from cigarettes including nicotine, pesticides, residues and metal seep from cigarette butts into aquatic ecosystems, which become acutely toxic to fish and microorganisms.

However, as studies into E-cigarette waste continue, it has become apparent that they could pose a more serious environmental threat than cigarette butts.

This is because E-cigarettes introduce plastic, nicotine salts, heavy metals, lead, mercury and flammable lithium-ion batteries into waterways, soil and to wildlife.

Unlike cigarette butts, e-cigarette waste won’t biodegrade even under severe conditions. E-cigarettes left on the street eventually break down into micro plastics and chemicals that flow into the storm drains to pollute our waterways and wildlife. 

It is so important that we look after the environment around us, so that our mob can continue to thrive and return to Country.

So this World No Tobacco Day, Make sure that you are not only quitting for your health, but the health of those around you and our precious environment too.