Certain countries have taken strict action on smoking by completely banning it. They also impose a penalty on the people that still smoke in public places. Although this is a great proposition, several people across the world still do not take it seriously.

Worldwide, approximately 10 million cigarettes are purchased a minute, 15 billion are sold each day, and upwards of 5 trillion are produced and used on an annual basis.

People standing in public, out on the streets, in front of supermarkets openly smoke. People passing by these smokers involuntarily inhale the toxic gases and unfortunately increase their risk of getting health problems.

Cigarettes are made from tobacco leaves that originally absorbed all their carbon from the atmosphere as they grew. When you smoke them you're just returning this carbon. Thus cigarettes increase the content of toxic chemicals in the air subsequently ruining the quality of the air and increasing air pollution. In fact, The air pollution emitted by cigarettes is 10 times greater than car exhaust.

One little cigarette contains about 7000 chemicals, 69 of which have been proven to cause cancer. Smoke that burns off the end of a cigarette may be even more toxic than the smoke inhaled by a smoker. This goes to show that cigarettes have a very harmful effect on the environment.

I have already established the fact that smoking pollutes the air, but unfortunately, the damage to the environment does not stop there. The most overlooked issue of the consumption of cigarettes is the subsequent discarding of the butts.

It’s estimated that 1.69 billion pounds of cigarette butts become litter each year. And 2 million of these cigarette buds are found in water bodies which results in the death of several aquatic animals.

Cigarette smoke without an ounce of doubt is harmful to humans, Worldwide tobacco causes 6 million deaths per year, that’s one death every 5 seconds. However, careless disposal of cigarette butts as well can be hazardous to animals on land and fishes of the sea. The ingestion of cigarette butts can choke an animal or poison it with toxins.

The only measure that we can take to rectify this situation is to stop smoking and more importantly stop littering. In my opinion, we owe it to the environment to stop smoking and littering. Take care of yourself and take care of the environment by putting a stop to smoking.