How many matches can you make from one tree

All chemicals used for manufacturing matches are nontoxic to animals and human being. So water drained from match factories is completely safe on the earth. Matchsticks are made of Aspen trees. In one minute the chopper produces , splints or approximately 10 million splints every hour. This is where the individual match splints are produced. Because the trees from which the splints are made had no time to dry out the splints are still wet.

There is just one more stage before they are dried. From the chopper, the splints take a ride on a conveyor belt to a bath containing a special liquid an ammonium phosphate solution in which they are given a really good soaking. This treatment is referred to as impregnation and is a safety process that stops the matches from glowing after the flame has been put out.

However, reports of appalling working conditions for match-makers continue today. The UN estimates that the industry in India directly employs , people. It is unclear, though, if any of these matches, many made for export, are sold within the UK.

It says that all of its matches sold in the UK are produced at its Swedish factory using local, sustainably grown aspen. For any smoker wondering how many trees they might burn in the form of matches over their lifetime, Swedish Match provides some interesting data.

It says that about one million matches can be made from each average-sized aspen. Therefore, three a-day smokers would take about 45 years - if they lived that long - to strike their way through one tree's worth of matches. On a wider scale, the World Health Organisation says that about 15bn cigarettes are smoked every day around the world - one in three in China alone.

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