You probably already had this figured out, but we just found confirmation that, indeed, smoking is bad for the environment. From Slate:So what kind of air pollution does the world's nicotine craving produce? The average cigarette emits about 14 milligrams of fine particulate matter, the tiny little fragmentsthat can lodge in lungs and cause health problems. The global tobacco industry manufactures roughly 5.5 trillion cigarettes annually. Assuming that all those cancer sticks get consumed, smokers around the world spew out about 84,878 tons of fine particulate matter annually, or a little less than half of a year's worth of emissions from American on-road vehicles. It also mentions that tobacco requires more pesticides than most crops, and that the planting of tobacco fields is the cause of much deforestation, though not as much as with coca and opium fields (which means that smokers have that much sought-after environmental leg up on drug addicts.) Organic smokes are a little better, but not much. And there's also the problem of cigarette waste, which results in 1.7 billion pounds of litter annually.So, if you can't quit for your health, try quitting for the health of the planet.Image via Flickr user Mendhak.
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