Smoking costs the earth and is still the leading cause of early death in the UK, Stop Smoking London is calling on more smokers to count the massive costs to the planet, their city and themselves ahead of World No Tobacco Day and get help to quit.

Tobacco production has a massive impact on the environment. Tobacco farming across 125 countries results in the annual destruction of 200,000 hectares of woodland, contributing to deforestation and diverting resources from food production [1] [2]. Trillions of cigarette butts are used and thrown into the environment every year where the plastic filters dump a toxic mix of nicotine, arsenic and heavy metals into our rivers, soil and oceans before turning into microplastic pollution [3].

Despite a decrease in smoking rates and a change in attitudes to smoking over the past 70 years, cigarette butts remain the most encountered litter item in the UK. In London they account for 66% of litter as the 8.16m cigarettes consumed each day result in 434 tonnes of waste each year of which 182 tonnes ends up as street litter [4].

In a recent YouGov poll, including smokers, ex- and non-smokers, by charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) 80% of Londoners would support a ban on cigarette butts to protect the environment. Removing this plastic from cigarettes could help solve part of the problem, but the damage caused by cigarettes at every stage of their production, use and disposal is still costing the planet, the city and individuals dearly.

Professor of Respiratory Medicine at Imperial College London Nick Hopkinson has a keen professional interest in the tobacco supply chain and its impact on the environment: “We know smoking causes lung cancer and other severe respiratory problems. What most people don’t realise is cigarette filters are the single biggest source of global plastic pollution. Even if the plastic is replaced, the toxic chemicals cigarette filters are soaked in remain hugely damaging for our river and marine life.

“People need to realise that cigarettes are not just harmful to smokers, they are an unethical product. In terms of the environment and its impact on food scarcity in low- and middle-income countries tobacco is a bad crop. Growing and curing tobacco drives deforestation.

Each cigarette consumed is not just robbing smokers in the UK of their health and increasing their risk of premature death, it is also burning the resources of the developing world.”

And it’s not just developing economies that are affected. Smoking costs London £2.98bn per year in lost productivity, including smoking related lost earnings (£1.18bn), unemployment (£1.1bn), early death (£201m) and its local authorities an extra £150 million in social care [5].

An increasingly expensive addiction, smoking costs the Londoner who smokes 20-a-day an additional £2,000 per year. Families in which two people smoke could be losing up to £4,000 in income. In a city where it’s estimated that 82,000 households with a smoker fall below the poverty line [6], stopping smoking can have a huge impact on smokers and their families.

Dr Somen Banerjee, Co-Chair and Smoking Cessation Lead of the London Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH) said: “Stopping smoking not only benefits the environment and the economy, but it also has an immediate impact on your health and your finances. Someone smoking two-packs per day, if they quit smoking, stands to gain £4,000 of lost income back each year. You’re three times as likely to stop smoking successfully with support from your local stop smoking service and Stop Smoking London’s website and helpline are the best place to start that journey.”

29-year-old Marisa White from Croydon started smoking when she was just nine years old. Repeated admissions to hospital linked to asthma, pneumonia and mental illness left her feeling sick and alone. It was on an acute admission ward at South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust that Marisa stopped smoking with support from a specialist tobacco dependence advisor.

She said: “The money I spent on cigarettes and tobacco would be a minimum of £15,000 to £20,000 which I could have put a deposit down on a house. Or I could have gone away backpacking. I could have done a lot of things in my life or had a lot nicer things. Where it’s a drug you crave it, and then that craving begins to increase. So, I ended up smoking between 30 and 40 a day. Which looking back is ridiculous.

“Since I quit smoking I’ve become more positive and thinking of a better outlook. And it’s not bleak sitting there rolling a cigarette or buying a cigarette. Your life doesn’t revolve around that. So, you have more time to do things for yourself. I’m able to go out, I’m able to afford to buy nice things, new things, save up. The world’s a better and bigger place when you’re not smoking.”