“Can cigarettes really contribute to the climate crisis?”

The question came to mind after seeing numerous wet cigarette butts scattered along an alley leading to a house. They may be small. But when it rains, couldn’t these cigarette butts be carried away by runoff and eventually end up in drains, rivers, or even the ocean?

If cigarette butts already leave behind a problem after they are discarded, what about everything that happens before a cigarette reaches the consumer?

When traced from upstream to downstream, cigarettes turn out to have a considerable environmental footprint. Their journey begins with tobacco cultivation, leaf curing, manufacturing, packaging, and distribution, and eventually ends as waste after the cigarette is smoked.

This means the issue of cigarettes does not stop with the smoke inhaled by smokers and those around them. Behind every cigarette are land use, energy, water, raw materials, and waste generation—all of which also deserve attention.

It Starts with Tobacco

Before it becomes a cigarette, everything begins with the tobacco plant.

Tobacco cultivation requires substantial amounts of land and resources. Several studies cited in this article indicate that the tobacco industry contributes to deforestation, both through land clearing for plantations and the use of wood as fuel for curing tobacco leaves (Goel, 2025; Novotny, 2015).

The tobacco curing process also requires large amounts of wood biomass or coal. This energy use is associated not only with greenhouse gas emissions, but can also increase pressure on forest cover when wood is used as fuel (Hendlin, 2019).

The issue goes beyond land and energy use. Tobacco plants also require nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium in certain quantities. Intensive use of fertilizers and pesticides in tobacco cultivation can contribute to water pollution, declining soil quality, and disruption of biodiversity (Goel, 2025; Novotny, 2015).

When agricultural land continues to be dedicated to a single commodity, another issue emerges: land and resources that could otherwise be used for diverse food needs are instead allocated to tobacco plantations.

That is why the environmental footprint of cigarettes actually begins long before a match is lit.

Emissions Downstream: From Factories to Local Shops

After tobacco leaves are harvested and cured, the journey is far from over. The tobacco then goes through manufacturing, packaging, transportation, and distribution before eventually reaching the shops and stalls around us.

All of these processes require energy and generate emissions. The tobacco industry as a whole has an emissions footprint across various stages of its supply chain. Globally, tobacco supply chain emissions are estimated at around 80–84 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent per year (Goel, 2025).

This footprint does not come from tobacco alone. Cigarette production also requires various other materials, including paper, filters, ink, glue, and packaging materials. Life cycle assessment studies show that non-tobacco materials, packaging processes, and distribution also contribute to the environmental burden of the tobacco industry (Lal, 2018).

One part that is often overlooked is the cigarette filter. The global tobacco industry is estimated to use more than 1 million tonnes of cellulose acetate filters each year (Novotny, 2023). This material is plastic-based and does not readily decompose, despite its small size.

Then there is the packaging. Cigarette production requires paper, ink, cellophane, glue, aluminum foil, and various types of packaging to protect the products during storage and distribution. The tobacco industry is estimated to use around 2.15 million tonnes of packaging materials each year, excluding cardboard packaging used for large-scale shipping (Lapinskiene, 2025).

Once cigarettes have been produced and packaged, they still have to travel to consumers. Distribution by vehicles, including diesel-powered trucks, generates emissions through fuel combustion (Sogi, 2022).

So, when we see a single pack of cigarettes at a local shop, there is actually a long journey behind it—from farms and factories to warehouses and distribution vehicles, before finally reaching the consumer’s hands.

Then, after the cigarette has been smoked, where does everything left behind go?

Cigarette Butts: Small in Size, Big in Impact

This is where something often overlooked comes into focus: cigarette butts.

They are small and therefore easy to dismiss as insignificant. Yet cigarette butts are among the most commonly found types of litter in the environment. Their cellulose acetate filters are difficult to break down and can release various pollutants into the environment (Beutel, 2021).

Cigarette butts can be found in many places, from urban areas and beaches to rivers and lakes. When discarded carelessly, they can move from land into bodies of water through rain, surface runoff, rivers, and floods.

The problem is not only about littered surroundings. Substances released from cigarette butts can also affect organisms in the environment, including aquatic organisms. Toxicity studies show that aquatic ecosystems are among the areas most frequently studied in relation to the impacts of cigarette butts, with several studies finding harmful effects on aquatic organisms (Lian, 2024).

In other words, the journey of a cigarette does not automatically end when the flame goes out. The small piece we leave behind can continue its journey into the environment.

Who Bears the Impact?

When discussing the environmental impact of cigarettes, the question is not only, “Who smokes?” but also, “Who bears the impact?”

Consumers certainly have a role because demand for these products drives production. However, the environmental burden of the tobacco industry cannot simply be placed on individual smokers.

There is a much longer production chain behind it: land use, raw materials, energy, manufacturing, packaging, distribution, and waste management.

This is where the perspective of environmental justice becomes important. Those who benefit economically from an industry are not necessarily the same people who experience the greatest ecological burden. Communities living near production areas, workers, communities exposed to pollution, and people affected by environmental contamination and change may all bear the consequences.

Therefore, responsibility for reducing the environmental impact of cigarettes also needs to be addressed at the industry and policy levels. Producers have a role in designing more responsible products, reducing the use of problematic materials, and ensuring that waste management and production processes take environmental impacts into account.

Cigarettes, Health, and the Climate Crisis

From this, we can see that cigarettes are not only a human health issue. Environmental concerns also follow their journey from upstream to downstream.

From land used for tobacco cultivation and energy used for curing and production, to raw materials for cigarettes and packaging, emissions from distribution, and cigarette butts that end up in the environment, all of these contribute to an ecological footprint that cannot be ignored.

However, it is important to view the issue proportionally. Cigarettes are not the only cause of the climate crisis. The climate crisis is a major challenge driven by a wide range of human activities and economic sectors. Nevertheless, the emissions footprint and environmental impacts of the tobacco industry show that everyday products such as cigarettes also have ecological consequences that deserve to be taken into account.

So, what can we do?

As individuals, one of the most direct steps is not to start smoking or to make an effort to quit. In addition to reducing health risks, this choice also means reducing demand for a product with an environmental footprint that extends from upstream to downstream.

At the same time, change cannot stop with consumers. The industry needs to be encouraged to take greater responsibility for the environmental impacts of its entire product life cycle, while governments have a role in establishing, monitoring, and enforcing policies that protect public health and the environment.

Because when we talk about a cigarette, what we see may be only a few minutes spent smoking it. But behind those few minutes is a long journey and a footprint that can last much longer.

Referensi

Beutel, M., Harmon, T., Novotny, T., Mock, J., Gilmore, M., Hart, S. C., Traína, S., Duttagupta, S., Brooks, A. J., Jerde, C., Hoh, E., Van De Werfhorst, L. C., Butsic, V., Wartenberg, A., & Holden, P. (2021). A Review of Environmental Pollution from the Use and Disposal of Cigarettes and Electronic Cigarettes: Contaminants, Sources, and Impacts.Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132312994

Goel, S., & Bhatt, G. (2025). Editorial: World no tobacco day 2023. Frontiers in Public Health, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1676372

Hendlin, Y., & Bialous, S. (2019). The environmental externalities of tobacco manufacturing: A review of tobacco industry reporting. Ambio, 49, 17–34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-019-01148-3

Lapinskienė, G., Blazaitis, M., Gedvilaitė, D., & Slavinskaitė, N. (2025). The Assessment of the Green Development of the Tobacco Industry Using a Multicriteria Method. Emerging Science Journal. https://doi.org/10.28991/esj-2025-09-01-018

Lal, P. (2018). Carbon footprint of the cigarette industry: An analysis from India. Tobacco Induced Diseases, 16. https://doi.org/10.18332/tid/84366

Lian, H., Zhu, L., Li, M., Feng, S., Gao, F., Zhang, X., Zhang, F., Xi, Y., & Xiang, X. (2024). Emerging threat of marine microplastics: Cigarette butt contamination on Yellow Sea beaches and the potential toxicity risks to rotifer growth and reproduction. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 478, 135534. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.135534

Novotny, T., & Zhao, F. (1999). Consumption and production waste: Another externality of tobacco use. Tobacco Control, 8, 75–80. https://doi.org/10.1136/tc.8.1.75

Novotny, T., Bialous, S., Burt, L., Curtis, C., Iqtidar, S. U., Liu, Y., Pujari, S., & d’Espaignet, É. T. (2015). The environmental and health impacts of tobacco agriculture, cigarette manufacture and consumption. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 93, 877–880. https://doi.org/10.2471/blt.15.152744

Novotny, T., & Hamzai, L. (2023). Cellulose acetate cigarette filter is hazardous to human health. Tobacco Control, 33. https://doi.org/10.1136/tc-2023-057925

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