Biodegradable Cigarette Filters Don’t Litter: You Plant Trees!
March 11th, 2015
By Lara Lopes
We all know very well that smoking is not good for health, but it could, however, become a less environmentally harmful activity. Think about how many cigarettes an average smoker puffs everyday. Now take a look at the big picture and try to calculate how many cigarettes that makes per year. Studies show that the average smoker burns over 7000 cigarettes a year, so imagine if their filters were embedded with seeds that grow into trees after being thrown away. Enter the biodegradable cigarette filters that has seeds embedded in it.
Nowadays, more than 20% of the world population smokes, therefore, it should be a requirement that tobacco companies at least care about the toxic trash their product leaves behind. In 2012, it was estimated that each year about 5 trillion cigarette butts are thrown away and since 2002 the population has consumed over 43 trillion cigarettes all over the world. And that was three years ago.
Fortunately, there are companies who care about innovating their design and producing more sustainable products that won’t harm the environment. This time, it was the Indian company Prasadam Industries, who created cigarette filters containing seeds that can sprout in almost any type of soil. So the next time someone smokes a cigarette with a KARMA filter and unconsciously throws the butt on the ground, at least they’ll be planting trees.
The filters are made from a biodegradable pulp that doesn’t contain any chemicals or toxic substances, which nourishes and protects the seeds from heat and nicotine. So you could say that keeps them well nurtured until they grow into trees. This may the start of something really big if the tobacco industry decided to implement something similar to this, but of course it would be better if the world just stopped smoking altogether.
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