As we look forward to World No-Tobacco Day on May 31 2022, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has announced another convincing reason to motivate people around the world to quit smoking. The WHO’s global campaign in 2022, titled ‘Tobacco: Threat to our environment’, aims to help raise community awareness on the environmental impact of tobacco production and consumption, including the dire consequences of farming, manufacturing, distribution, consumption and disposal of tobacco waste.

According to statistics, every year, globally, around 3.5 million hectares of land are destroyed for the development of tobacco manufacturing facilities and 200,000 hectares of forests are destroyed or degraded due to cultivation of tobacco. Tobacco production also causes the destruction of water resources and the depletion of fossil fuels and metal resources.

In order to globalise tobacco supply chain and sales, the tobacco industry has to rely heavily on different modes of transportation, which consume many different resources. Each year, around 4.5 trillion cigarettes are not disposed of properly around the world, generating nearly one million tons of hazardous waste, releasing thousands of different chemicals into the air, water and land.

In recent years, many businesses, including tobacco corporations, have chosen environmental sustainability as a core value in their corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. According to a WHO report, almost 80 per cent of the more than one billion smokers in the world live in low-income countries, with high rates of morbidity and mortality from tobacco. Reducing tobacco consumption not only brings direct benefits to human health, but also has a positive impact on the economy.

FV Hospital will celebrate World No-Tobacco Day in 2022 and National No-Tobacco Week, from May 25 to 31, 2022, through its ongoing commitment to being a smoke-free hospital. Simultaneously, keeping in mind its responsibility to taking care of our community’s health, FV always tries to encourage patients, staff and people not to use or to reduce their use of tobacco, because of its harmful effects on the body and our environment.

Tobacco has many negative effects on the health of smokers. An important point to note is that nearly 900,000 people have died due to second-hand smoke. This year’s World No-Tobacco Day, once again, emphasises that smoking not only harms oneself, but also affects the health of everyone. Reducing tobacco consumption helps to protect our loved ones, and our environment.