Strict tobacco control laws are needed to protect the environment and animal diversity

Publish: 6:51 PM, July 31, 2022 | Update: 6:51 PM, July 31, 2022

Pinkey Ibrahim

 

Millions of cigarette and bidi residues are spreading in nature every day. Environmental pollution is also caused by the smoke generated during tobacco drying and cigarette smoking. Basically, tobacco companies are getting away with not having specific policies. And so environmental pollution is happening constantly.
According to a report by the World Health Organization (WHO), one and a half million adults in Bangladesh smoke cigarettes. 5.3 million people eat bidi. And 2.2 million people consume smokeless tobacco.
According to WHO estimates, 12.3 million cigarettes are consumed in Bangladesh every day. An equivalent amount of cigarette filters are thrown away as garbage. And 7 crore 20 lakh bidis are consumed every day, that is, the same amount of indigestible parts are being thrown away as garbage. As such, every day 19.5 million cigarette-bidi residues are mixed in the nature.
Cigarettes or bidis are made from tobacco leaves. These leaves are dried in the oven (tandoor). According to the Policy Research on Development Options (UBINEG) estimate, 240 maunds of wood are required for each tandoor in one season.
Tobacco is responsible for 31 percent of Bangladesh’s deforestation, according to Tobacco Atlas, a US-based database on tobacco.
Dr. Arup Ratan Chowdhury, the founder of Manas organization, said that a lot of wood has to be burnt in the production of tobacco. Moreover, the irreparable damage to the health of the soil and water in tobacco cultivation is the reduction of soil fertility due to the chemical fertilizers used in tobacco. A large amount of toxins are released from the tobacco plant. which pollutes the water and causes severe damage to aquatic flora including fish.
At the same time, he added, due to tobacco farming for a long time on the hillsides, fertilizers and chemicals mixed with water used in tobacco cultivation and cultivation are directly falling into the river. This is seriously polluting Halda water. Moreover, tobacco cultivation is responsible for 31 percent deforestation in the country. Therefore, it is very important to gradually reduce tobacco cultivation and to stop tobacco cultivation completely through strict laws.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 1.5 billion hectares of forest have been destroyed worldwide since 1970 due to tobacco cultivation and production. Which is responsible for 20 percent increase in greenhouse gases annually. Globally, 3.5 million hectares of land are destroyed by tobacco cultivation every year, which accounts for five percent of the global deforestation. Apart from this, one tree is burnt to make 300 cigarettes. That is, 14 grams of carbon dioxide is produced in the manufacture of one cigarette.
Environmentalists feel that there is a need to formulate specific policies to prevent environmental damage. And they urged the Department of Environment to come forward in this regard.
In this regard, Monirul H Khan of Jahangir Nagar University Department of Zoology said that tobacco chemicals mixed with water are having a bad effect on animals. Even many fish species are going extinct.
According to the research, in Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban, about 85 thousand metric tons of firewood has been used in the drying (curing) of tobacco leaves in one year. For this, 29 lakh mature trees are cut annually. The hills are becoming treeless due to collection of these timbers from the local forests. There is a high risk of flash floods and landslides.
Also, discarded cigarette filters are also one of the causes of environmental pollution. In the fiscal year 2020-21, a total of 71 billion cigarettes were produced in the country. It takes about a decade for discarded cigarette filters to mix with nature. More than seven thousand chemicals are released from these filters. That could wipe out many beneficial organisms, say environmentalists.
Executive Director of Pragya ABM Zubair said, the 2013 Amendment Act does not have any strict restrictions on tobacco companies. Although the Tobacco Control Act mentions the formulation of special policies (Section 12) to discourage tobacco cultivation, no such policy has yet been enacted. Therefore, if this issue is fully included in the proposed law to protect the environment and public health, the responsibility of the tobacco company will increase and environmental pollution will decrease.
Not only cigarettes, smokeless tobacco products like jorda, gul are also sold in plastic bags and polythene packets, which are very harmful to the environment. Articles 17 and 18 of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) deal with environmental protection from the harmful effects of tobacco cultivation and alternative employment for tobacco farmers and workers.

(The writer is a freelancer.)