Causing lung cancer and heart disease the “eco-friendly” way
July 27, 2011
Cigarettes kill and pollute. There's nothing healthy or environmentally friendly about them.
So it's truly outrageous that the Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company, owned by Reynolds American, is running magazine ads promoting its Natural American Spirit cigarettes as 'eco friendly.' It's called greenwashing — making deceptive environmental claims to improve the image of a controversial product or company.
Earlier this week, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids joined Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Legacy in exposing the ads and calling on Santa Fe to end this promotion.
Today, an article in USA TODAY added to the chorus of criticism.
'This is a perfect example of why green marketing is broken,' Joel Makower, executive director of GreenBiz.com, told USA TODAY. 'Products that harm people should not be marketed as green.'
Santa Fe's ads brag that the company used recycled content for its ad insert and has hand dryers instead of paper towels in its office. What they don't tell you:
Cigarettes kill more than 400,000 Americans and nearly six million people worldwide every year.
Cigarette smoke spews more than 7,000 chemicals into the environment, including hundreds that are toxic and at least 69 that cause cancer.
At least 5.6 trillion cigarettes are discarded into the environment worldwide each year, making cigarette butts and filters the most common form of litter.
There's nothing eco-friendly about lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and the many other diseases caused by cigarettes.