Although matches and lighters are seeing less and less use these days, a lot of people are inspecting everyday items for their ethics, and trying to choose more sustainable and better options. Doing so can be hard because there are a lot of factors to consider. Are matches better than lighters?
Matches have the advantage of being made from biodegradable materials since they are created from wood and packaged in cardboard. Disposable lighters, which are made using plastic, are much harder to get rid of and have other issues too. However, there are concerns about the labor conditions in the match trade. Plus, reusable options are almost always the best way to go.
We’re going to use this article to understand more about the ethics of matches and lighters and figure out which is best for you to use. Hopefully, this will help you with your decision.
Are Matches Better For The Environment?
It can be difficult to measure how good something is for the environment because there are a lot of factors to consider.
We’re going to look at two of the major ones here:
- Creation
- Disposal
Let’s start with creation.
Are Matches Made More Sustainably Than Lighters?
Matches are made from natural materials, which is generally considered a good thing. Making them does require trees to be cut down, but a single aspen tree can supply about a million matches.
That doesn’t go far when you consider about 15 billion cigarettes are smoked across the globe every day, but for the impact of one smoker, it’s minor. Even if you smoked 20 cigarettes a day, you’d be unlikely to burn through a whole tree of matches in your lifetime. Additionally, many matches are harvested from sustainably grown aspen trees, which makes the impact less significant.
By contrast, lighters involve the creation of plastic, which depends on the petrochemical industry. They tend to be non-reusable, and around 4 million disposable lighters are sold globally every day. A single lighter will give a user about 3000 strikes, meaning that you’d need about 333 lighters to equal a tree’s worth of matches (very approximately).Â
As you can see, neither matches nor disposable lighters are perfect, but matches can be much better if the trees are farmed responsibly and replaced. Lighters, dependent upon plastic, petrochemicals, and gas, are not.
Are Matches Easier To Dispose Of?
Matches are much easier to dispose of than lighters, yes. They are made mostly of wood, while lighters require plastic, metal, and gas. Wood can just be composted when the match is spent, and it will break back down into natural particles.
Plastic lighters, however, will not break down and are destined for landfills when they no longer work. They are a big environmental issue.Â
There are famous photos of them in the stomachs of deceased birds and other animals, and they are going to remain a problem for the world long after they become useless. They cannot be easily recycled, and they will not disappear with time.
It’s clear that matches are better from a disposal perspective; they will break down and they are less harmful to animals and the planet.
Are Matches Ethically Made?
There are concerns about the making of matches and slave labor in places like India. Problems have existed in the match industry for hundreds of years, with protests dating as far back as 1888. Today, it’s thought that many matches are manufactured in India, sometimes by children as young as five, for a pittance each week.
This means that matches are more ethically dubious than they would otherwise be – although it should be noted that many matches are not manufactured in this fashion. It’s best to look at the country of manufacture when you’re buying matches, so you can choose ones that were manufactured somewhere with good labor rights, as close to your own home as possible.
Less research has gone into the manufacturing process of disposable lighters. However, it’s less likely that these are made by children since the design is significantly more complicated. That doesn’t mean that the industry is free from cruelty and exploitation, however; there simply isn’t much information about this at present.
Given the cheapness and disposable nature of the product, it’s not unreasonable to assume that the working conditions behind it are not ideal. You should take this into account when deciding whether to buy disposable lighters or matches and look for companies that publish ethics statements about their working conditions. Neither option seems ideal.
Conclusion
Overall, matches win against lighters in terms of their green impact, because they are made from renewable resources and can be disposed of much more cleanly.
Even if they are thrown on the street, they will safely decompose, rather than pose a danger to animals. In terms of their manufacture, both tools have their problem, and a reusable option is vastly preferable to either.
