Sustainable Cigarettes…Friend or Foe?
July 7, 2009
Cigarettes may be the least “green” product available on the market. They release toxic fumes in the air, dirty our streets with ash, and litter our sidewalks with butts. Yet, one Canadian tobacco company is promoting their green initiatives.
Du Maurier recently introduced its eco-friendly cigarette. The outer packaging uses a more sustainable paper than normal and the inner packaging eliminates foil in exchange for eco-friendly paper. Does this mean we should all go out and smoke? Absolutely not. Plently of reports out there discuss the dangers of cigarettes. But, if you are a current smoker and don’t have any plans to quit, then it might be worthwhile to light up these cigarettes. They are in no way “eco-friendly” like they say – no cigarette can be. But, it’s sort of the lesser of two evils.
This whole campaign raises another question – is this type of advertising wrong? Can a tobacco company promote itself as environmentally conscious? It’s an unanswerable question, but laws are in place to decrease the influences the big tobacco in the advertising world. I guess du Maurier found a loophole.
Obviously, this has caused buzz in the advertising and social worlds. Maybe du Maurier could have focused on making cigarette accessories more eco-friendly.
