smoke pollution essay

Air Pollution: Everything You Need to Know

How smog, soot, greenhouse gases, and other top air pollutants are affecting the planet—and your health.

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What is air pollution?

What causes air pollution, effects of air pollution, air pollution in the united states, air pollution and environmental justice, controlling air pollution, how to help reduce air pollution, how to protect your health.

Air pollution  refers to the release of pollutants into the air—pollutants that are detrimental to human health and the planet as a whole. According to the  World Health Organization (WHO) , each year, indoor and outdoor air pollution is responsible for nearly seven million deaths around the globe. Ninety-nine percent of human beings currently breathe air that exceeds the WHO’s guideline limits for pollutants, with those living in low- and middle-income countries suffering the most. In the United States, the  Clean Air Act , established in 1970, authorizes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to safeguard public health by regulating the emissions of these harmful air pollutants.

“Most air pollution comes from energy use and production,” says  John Walke , director of the Clean Air team at NRDC. Driving a car on gasoline, heating a home with oil, running a power plant on  fracked gas : In each case, a fossil fuel is burned and harmful chemicals and gases are released into the air.

“We’ve made progress over the last 50 years in improving air quality in the United States, thanks to the Clean Air Act. But climate change will make it harder in the future to meet pollution standards, which are designed to  protect health ,” says Walke.

Air pollution is now the world’s fourth-largest risk factor for early death. According to the 2020  State of Global Air  report —which summarizes the latest scientific understanding of air pollution around the world—4.5 million deaths were linked to outdoor air pollution exposures in 2019, and another 2.2 million deaths were caused by indoor air pollution. The world’s most populous countries, China and India, continue to bear the highest burdens of disease.

“Despite improvements in reducing global average mortality rates from air pollution, this report also serves as a sobering reminder that the climate crisis threatens to worsen air pollution problems significantly,” explains  Vijay Limaye , senior scientist in NRDC’s Science Office. Smog, for instance, is intensified by increased heat, forming when the weather is warmer and there’s more ultraviolet radiation. In addition, climate change increases the production of allergenic air pollutants, including mold (thanks to damp conditions caused by extreme weather and increased flooding) and pollen (due to a longer pollen season). “Climate change–fueled droughts and dry conditions are also setting the stage for dangerous wildfires,” adds Limaye. “ Wildfire smoke can linger for days and pollute the air with particulate matter hundreds of miles downwind.”

The effects of air pollution on the human body vary, depending on the type of pollutant, the length and level of exposure, and other factors, including a person’s individual health risks and the cumulative impacts of multiple pollutants or stressors.

Smog and soot

These are the two most prevalent types of air pollution. Smog (sometimes referred to as ground-level ozone) occurs when emissions from combusting fossil fuels react with sunlight. Soot—a type of  particulate matter —is made up of tiny particles of chemicals, soil, smoke, dust, or allergens that are carried in the air. The sources of smog and soot are similar. “Both come from cars and trucks, factories, power plants, incinerators, engines, generally anything that combusts fossil fuels such as coal, gasoline, or natural gas,” Walke says.

Smog can irritate the eyes and throat and also damage the lungs, especially those of children, senior citizens, and people who work or exercise outdoors. It’s even worse for people who have asthma or allergies; these extra pollutants can intensify their symptoms and trigger asthma attacks. The tiniest airborne particles in soot are especially dangerous because they can penetrate the lungs and bloodstream and worsen bronchitis, lead to heart attacks, and even hasten death. In  2020, a report from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health showed that COVID-19 mortality rates were higher in areas with more particulate matter pollution than in areas with even slightly less, showing a correlation between the virus’s deadliness and long-term exposure to air pollution. 

These findings also illuminate an important  environmental justice issue . Because highways and polluting facilities have historically been sited in or next to low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, the negative effects of this pollution have been  disproportionately experienced by the people who live in these communities.

Hazardous air pollutants

A number of air pollutants pose severe health risks and can sometimes be fatal, even in small amounts. Almost 200 of them are regulated by law; some of the most common are mercury,  lead , dioxins, and benzene. “These are also most often emitted during gas or coal combustion, incineration, or—in the case of benzene—found in gasoline,” Walke says. Benzene, classified as a carcinogen by the EPA, can cause eye, skin, and lung irritation in the short term and blood disorders in the long term. Dioxins, more typically found in food but also present in small amounts in the air, is another carcinogen that can affect the liver in the short term and harm the immune, nervous, and endocrine systems, as well as reproductive functions.  Mercury  attacks the central nervous system. In large amounts, lead can damage children’s brains and kidneys, and even minimal exposure can affect children’s IQ and ability to learn.

Another category of toxic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), are by-products of traffic exhaust and wildfire smoke. In large amounts, they have been linked to eye and lung irritation, blood and liver issues, and even cancer.  In one study , the children of mothers exposed to PAHs during pregnancy showed slower brain-processing speeds and more pronounced symptoms of ADHD.

Greenhouse gases

While these climate pollutants don’t have the direct or immediate impacts on the human body associated with other air pollutants, like smog or hazardous chemicals, they are still harmful to our health. By trapping the earth’s heat in the atmosphere, greenhouse gases lead to warmer temperatures, which in turn lead to the hallmarks of climate change: rising sea levels, more extreme weather, heat-related deaths, and the increased transmission of infectious diseases. In 2021, carbon dioxide accounted for roughly 79 percent of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions, and methane made up more than 11 percent. “Carbon dioxide comes from combusting fossil fuels, and methane comes from natural and industrial sources, including large amounts that are released during oil and gas drilling,” Walke says. “We emit far larger amounts of carbon dioxide, but methane is significantly more potent, so it’s also very destructive.” 

Another class of greenhouse gases,  hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) , are thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide in their ability to trap heat. In October 2016, more than 140 countries signed the Kigali Agreement to reduce the use of these chemicals—which are found in air conditioners and refrigerators—and develop greener alternatives over time. (The United States officially signed onto the  Kigali Agreement in 2022.)

Pollen and mold

Mold and allergens from trees, weeds, and grass are also carried in the air, are exacerbated by climate change, and can be hazardous to health. Though they aren’t regulated, they can be considered a form of air pollution. “When homes, schools, or businesses get water damage, mold can grow and produce allergenic airborne pollutants,” says Kim Knowlton, professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University and a former NRDC scientist. “ Mold exposure can precipitate asthma attacks  or an allergic response, and some molds can even produce toxins that would be dangerous for anyone to inhale.”

Pollen allergies are worsening  because of climate change . “Lab and field studies are showing that pollen-producing plants—especially ragweed—grow larger and produce more pollen when you increase the amount of carbon dioxide that they grow in,” Knowlton says. “Climate change also extends the pollen production season, and some studies are beginning to suggest that ragweed pollen itself might be becoming a more potent allergen.” If so, more people will suffer runny noses, fevers, itchy eyes, and other symptoms. “And for people with allergies and asthma, pollen peaks can precipitate asthma attacks, which are far more serious and can be life-threatening.”

More than one in three U.S. residents—120 million people—live in counties with unhealthy levels of air pollution, according to the  2023  State of the Air  report by the American Lung Association (ALA). Since the annual report was first published, in 2000, its findings have shown how the Clean Air Act has been able to reduce harmful emissions from transportation, power plants, and manufacturing.

Recent findings, however, reflect how climate change–fueled wildfires and extreme heat are adding to the challenges of protecting public health. The latest report—which focuses on ozone, year-round particle pollution, and short-term particle pollution—also finds that people of color are 61 percent more likely than white people to live in a county with a failing grade in at least one of those categories, and three times more likely to live in a county that fails in all three.

In rankings for each of the three pollution categories covered by the ALA report, California cities occupy the top three slots (i.e., were highest in pollution), despite progress that the Golden State has made in reducing air pollution emissions in the past half century. At the other end of the spectrum, these cities consistently rank among the country’s best for air quality: Burlington, Vermont; Honolulu; and Wilmington, North Carolina. 

No one wants to live next door to an incinerator, oil refinery, port, toxic waste dump, or other polluting site. Yet millions of people around the world do, and this puts them at a much higher risk for respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, neurological damage, cancer, and death. In the United States, people of color are 1.5 times more likely than whites to live in areas with poor air quality, according to the ALA.

Historically, racist zoning policies and discriminatory lending practices known as  redlining  have combined to keep polluting industries and car-choked highways away from white neighborhoods and have turned communities of color—especially low-income and working-class communities of color—into sacrifice zones, where residents are forced to breathe dirty air and suffer the many health problems associated with it. In addition to the increased health risks that come from living in such places, the polluted air can economically harm residents in the form of missed workdays and higher medical costs.

Environmental racism isn't limited to cities and industrial areas. Outdoor laborers, including the estimated three million migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the United States, are among the most vulnerable to air pollution—and they’re also among the least equipped, politically, to pressure employers and lawmakers to affirm their right to breathe clean air.

Recently,  cumulative impact mapping , which uses data on environmental conditions and demographics, has been able to show how some communities are overburdened with layers of issues, like high levels of poverty, unemployment, and pollution. Tools like the  Environmental Justice Screening Method  and the EPA’s  EJScreen  provide evidence of what many environmental justice communities have been explaining for decades: that we need land use and public health reforms to ensure that vulnerable areas are not overburdened and that the people who need resources the most are receiving them.

In the United States, the  Clean Air Act  has been a crucial tool for reducing air pollution since its passage in 1970, although fossil fuel interests aided by industry-friendly lawmakers have frequently attempted to  weaken its many protections. Ensuring that this bedrock environmental law remains intact and properly enforced will always be key to maintaining and improving our air quality.

But the best, most effective way to control air pollution is to speed up our transition to cleaner fuels and industrial processes. By switching over to renewable energy sources (such as wind and solar power), maximizing fuel efficiency in our vehicles, and replacing more and more of our gasoline-powered cars and trucks with electric versions, we'll be limiting air pollution at its source while also curbing the global warming that heightens so many of its worst health impacts.

And what about the economic costs of controlling air pollution? According to a report on the Clean Air Act commissioned by NRDC, the annual  benefits of cleaner air  are up to 32 times greater than the cost of clean air regulations. Those benefits include up to 370,000 avoided premature deaths, 189,000 fewer hospital admissions for cardiac and respiratory illnesses, and net economic benefits of up to $3.8 trillion for the U.S. economy every year.

“The less gasoline we burn, the better we’re doing to reduce air pollution and the harmful effects of climate change,” Walke explains. “Make good choices about transportation. When you can, ride a bike, walk, or take public transportation. For driving, choose a car that gets better miles per gallon of gas or  buy an electric car .” You can also investigate your power provider options—you may be able to request that your electricity be supplied by wind or solar. Buying your food locally cuts down on the fossil fuels burned in trucking or flying food in from across the world. And most important: “Support leaders who push for clean air and water and responsible steps on climate change,” Walke says.

• “When you see in the news or hear on the weather report that pollution levels are high, it may be useful to limit the time when children go outside or you go for a jog,” Walke says. Generally, ozone levels tend to be lower in the morning.
• If you exercise outside, stay as far as you can from heavily trafficked roads. Then shower and wash your clothes to remove fine particles.
• The air may look clear, but that doesn’t mean it’s pollution free. Utilize tools like the EPA’s air pollution monitor,  AirNow , to get the latest conditions. If the air quality is bad, stay inside with the windows closed.
• If you live or work in an area that’s prone to wildfires,  stay away from the harmful smoke  as much as you’re able. Consider keeping a small stock of masks to wear when conditions are poor. The most ideal masks for smoke particles will be labelled “NIOSH” (which stands for National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) and have either “N95” or “P100” printed on it.
• If you’re using an air conditioner while outdoor pollution conditions are bad, use the recirculating setting to limit the amount of polluted air that gets inside. 

This story was originally published on November 1, 2016, and has been updated with new information and links.

This NRDC.org story is available for online republication by news media outlets or nonprofits under these conditions: The writer(s) must be credited with a byline; you must note prominently that the story was originally published by NRDC.org and link to the original; the story cannot be edited (beyond simple things such as grammar); you can’t resell the story in any form or grant republishing rights to other outlets; you can’t republish our material wholesale or automatically—you need to select stories individually; you can’t republish the photos or graphics on our site without specific permission; you should drop us a note to let us know when you’ve used one of our stories.

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Does smoking cause air pollution?

Unfortunately your cigarette habit may be a factor in harming the environment as well as your health.

Luis Villazon

Asked by: Nick Pullen, Braintree

Cigarettes are made from tobacco leaves that originally absorbed all their carbon from the atmosphere as they grew. When you smoke them you're just returning this carbon so the net effect is zero. But tobacco agriculture also generates greenhouse gases of its own, in the form of CO2 from the diesel used in farm machinery and NO2 from fertiliser - not to mention the CO2 attributed to packaging, distribution and advertising.

On the other hand, smokers live 10 years less than non-smokers on average. If those people didn't smoke, they would have lived for another decade driving their cars, using electricity and buying things. This would generate much more CO2 than all the cigarettes they ever smoked. So smoking actually reduces global pollution, simply by eliminating the polluters!

• Is alcohol as dangerous as smoking?
• Can I protect myself against air pollution?

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Essay: From fires to pollution, smog has been California’s dark companion for centuries

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When I close my eyes and think about that day in the late 1970s, I’m struck by the colors. The bright red of my favorite shirt. The silvery gray of smog sifting through the trees. The leaves, bleached by chemicals in the air, were soft-edged blobs of an indiscriminate dark hue.

I was in college and I’d driven from Northridge to Pasadena to visit the Norton Simon Museum. I don’t remember the paintings. What I do remember is the air pollution, thick and viscous.

It is hard not to think about smog during this terrible mid-September. California is on fire, millions of acres torched, tens of thousands of people evacuated. The pall of smoke from Northern California’s flames has been visible from space.

The sky is an orangey tan in the San Gabriel Valley, cement gray-brown even at the beach. Mountains have vanished behind the haze. It’s like a memo from Southern California’s past, a dire reminder of the bad old days when smoke-belching cars rolled through the streets, unchastened, when City Hall was regularly obscured and we’d yet to figure out what made our eyes sting and our lungs burn.

The air was so bad this weekend that eight Los Angeles County parks were closed, and “reopening is contingent on air quality and safety measures.”

The smoke forced a handful of county-run coronavirus test sites to close, one assault on our lungs making it harder for us to monitor another.

The Los Angeles Basin has a long, dark relationship with smog. In 1542, explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo christened San Pedro Bay “La Bahia de los Fumos” — the Bay of Smokes — because of the persistent, ground-hugging smoke from fires set by members of the Gabrielino-Tongva tribe as they hunted game on the hillsides.

There have been so many milestones since.

In 1901, a particularly bad-air day was mistaken for an eclipse of the sun.

In July 1943, thick, persistent smog in downtown Los Angeles shrank visibility to just three blocks. That episode kicks off “Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles.” As authors Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly noted in the 2008 work, “though nobody realized it then, the mystery cloudbank would rattle the planet — making ‘green’ a cause, not just a color — but first there was the suffering, a city full of it.”

And on Sept. 13, 1955, this car-loving sprawl of a city experienced the smoggiest day in its history, one that has not been equaled since. The ozone level in downtown L.A. was a lung-damaging 0.68 parts per million. In contrast, this Labor Day weekend was the worst air day in a generation; the ozone level spiked at just 185 parts per billion.

Sunday was the 65th anniversary of that smoggiest day ever, a reminder that, although there is much work to be done to make Southern California’s air more breathable, we still have come a long way.

If you celebrated by looking out the window, however, chances are you saw ... not very far.

On Saturday, Mary Nichols put off taking her dog for a morning walk. She lives in the Mid-Wilshire area, and by late afternoon, she said, it hurt to breathe. We are inhaling everything that burned, and it’s not just trees and brush.

“It’s also houses and commercial buildings and other things that were in [the fires’ path],” she said. “It’s undoubtedly got some unhealthy things in addition to just plain old carbon soot. ... There’s going to be chemicals from burning tires, burning plastics, all of which are more seriously harmful to health.”

Nichols knows her smog and how air quality in the Golden State has improved through the decades. She is chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, first appointed to the job by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in 1975. She has served in the same position on and off since, under Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brown again and, now, Gavin Newsom.

Nichols took her first trip to Los Angeles in 1969 when she was a student at Yale Law School. She and classmate arrived in the city in late afternoon.

“I remember descending into the basin, driving west toward Sunset Boulevard and being astonished by the peculiar color of the air,” she told The Times in an early profile. “It was a kind of flaming orange — not a natural color, but a peculiar, day-glo, chemical kind of orange.”

Today, she has other sensory memories of when breathing in Los Angeles was a regular assault on the lungs.

“I have a more vivid memory of the smell of the air, especially around LAX,” she said in an interview Saturday. “There were chemicals in use in those days that are no longer in use. ... You had both the ugly gray sky and the smell of the air.”

Nichols filed what is often described as the first lawsuit under the federal Clean Air Act, suing the state of California to force then-Gov. Ronald Reagan to meet the requirements of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. She won, but found out that making governments change is slow, hard work.

The single biggest step toward improving air quality, she said, was requiring catalytic converters on all new cars. California pushed oil companies to formulate unleaded gasoline for use in the state. The federal government followed later. Another major improvement was requiring power plants to shift from oil to natural gas, she said; they have since become cleaner still.

For all the gains, however, improvements have plateaued in recent years, and pollution levels have begun to creep back up. One thing that worries air pollution attorney Adrian Martinez is that people often measure our progress against the smoggiest days of the 20th century. And that gives a false sense of accomplishment.

“We’re not going back to the levels of the ’60s and ’70s, but if your strategy is to make it safe to breathe, we need dramatic reductions in pollution,” said Martinez, who is a staff attorney with the environmental group Earthjustice and tweets as @LASmogGuy.

That means, he said, “we need to go to zero emissions,” and not just with cars, but also with more serious polluters such as ships and trains. He does, however, see some hope. As a country we’re talking more about environmental justice, about the need to clean the air where poorer people live, too, in neighborhoods crisscrossed by a lattice of freeways coursing with the exhaust of interminable traffic.

There may be an odd upside to our current gray skies.

“If being in the pollution makes us realize how harmful it actually is, it could give us the impetus to solve this air pollution problem,” Martinez said. “Lots of lives will be saved. That’s the big thing. Air pollution is literally a life-or-death issue. ... It’s a shame it took these fires and pandemic, but hopefully we can shift how we operate.”

My family moved from central New Jersey to Southern California in February 1969, Cranbury Township to the San Fernando Valley. I was a chubby, lost 9-year-old, a smog-earthquake-wildfire novice.

Growing up in Granada Hills and Northridge, I remember seeing the nearby foothills for the first time on a rare, clear day. They were craggy, beautiful and so close. They’d been hidden behind a mantle of smog. I was stunned.

During my first fire season, I stood on our front lawn on Rinaldi Street, mid afternoon, dark as night. Ash like fat snowflakes sifted down. Evacuees drove by, their cars filled with belongings snatched in panic.

I vowed that, if God spared us, I would enter the convent.

We were fine.

And now, as the worst fire season in California history rages on, I am parked at the western end of Rose Avenue in Venice, a block or so from the scruffy apartment building where I lived in the mid-1980s.

It is Saturday, 8:45 a.m. The ocean is a slender, dark gray stripe, the horizon a mere suggestion. Malibu has disappeared, ditto the Palos Verdes Peninsula. The sun is a hazy, salmon-colored disc. My eyes sting.

Looking east, there is nothing beyond Pacific Avenue.

You need memory to believe the San Gabriel Mountains still rise somewhere in the distance.

And faith to believe you will see them again.

In California, in 2020, the first one is easy.

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April 24, 2024

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April 4, 2024

America’s four most polluted national parks are in California, study finds

March 20, 2024

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Maria L. La Ganga is the deputy managing editor for California and Metro, overseeing the Los Angeles Times’ largest editorial department. She joined The Times in 1981 as an academic intern, splitting her time between the former Metro section and National Dragster, the official publication of the National Hot Rod Assn. She has served as Seattle bureau chief, San Francisco bureau chief, edited in the Business section and pitched in on six presidential elections, five for The Times and one for the Guardian. La Ganga left The Times in 2015 and returned in 2018 after a brief hiatus during which she wrote for the Guardian and the Idaho Statesman. She was named city editor in 2022 and promoted to her current role in 2024. La Ganga graduated from Granada Hills High School in the San Fernando Valley and Cal State Northridge, where she studied English literature and journalism.

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Essay on Pollution: Samples in 100, 150 and 200 Words

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• Jun 20, 2024

As the world embraced urbanization, mother nature witnessed the greener lands getting transformed into modern cities and metropolises. What followed is a trail of natural disasters signalling that something is wrong with the planet Earth. Pollution is increasingly asked under the writing section in school and college tests as well as competitive exams . This is because it is a relevant environmental issue today. This blog aims to help you with the necessary knowledge as well as tips and tricks to draft a well-written essay on pollution.

This Blog Includes:

What is pollution, types of pollution, causes and health effects of pollution, sample essay on pollution in 100 words, sample essay on pollution in 250-300 words, sample essay on pollution in 300-350 words, short essay on pollution in english.

Pollution is the introduction of harmful materials into the environment. These materials are called pollutants. They can be created by human activity like trash and nature like volcanic ash. Pollutants damage the quality of water, air and land. Pollution is a global problem. Air and water carry pollution into the ocean currents and migrating fish. Pollution is among the many things that harm our planet- once greener and healthier than it is now. Pollution is a dangerous phenomenon that is contributing to an array of health issues.

Also Read: Essay on Yoga Day

Also Read: Speech on Yoga Day

In simple terms, pollution is defined as the contamination of the physical and biological constituents in the earth’s atmosphere. It affects human life and the natural environment to a very great extent. It degrades our natural resources, from the water we drink to the air we breathe. While writing an essay on Pollution, you must mention the major four types of pollution which are as follows:

• Air Pollution : Air pollution is the contamination of air in the atmosphere when harmful or excessive quantities of substances such as smoke and harmful gases from industries, CFCs and oxides produced by automobiles, the burning of solid wastes, etc. are introduced into the environment.
• Water Pollution : This refers to the contamination of natural resources of water, due to the addition of harmful chemical, biological or physical materials, which includes industrial wastes, oil spills, domestic and farm wastes, pesticides, as well as mining and agricultural wastes, to water resource which make it unusable.
• Soil Pollution : Land/Soil Pollution occurs due to the degradation of the earth’s surface by different commercial, industrial, agricultural and domestic activities. Causes of soil pollution also include mining, deforestation, dumping of e-waste and other industrial wastes, usage of harmful chemicals such as insecticides, pesticides, etc.
• Noise Pollution : Excess noise due to sounds created by machines, loudspeakers, microphones, loud music, noise from industries, construction and civil engineering works etc. lead to noise pollution.

You can include various causes and health effects in your essay on Pollution from the following table:-

Pollution is the addition of unwanted substances which are incorporated into the environment that can damage our Earth. There are mainly four types of pollution, these include water pollution, air pollution, soil pollution, and noise pollution. One should note that any form of pollution is the result of careless activity carried out by man. We, humans daily dump waste directly into water bodies which leads to water pollution.

Vehicle emissions of smoke into the atmosphere impede the ability of all living things to breathe, leading to air pollution. Our garbage is dumped into landfills directly, which results in soil pollution. Although it cannot be seen, noise pollution is a severe type of pollution that can harm our ears.

The biggest threat planet Earth is facing is pollution. Unwanted substances leave a negative impact once released into an environment. There are four types of pollution air, water, land, and noise. Pollution affects the quality of life more than any human can imagine.

Due to air pollution, even teenage kids have developed various respiratory diseases. Water pollution has led to diseases in children. The waste we humans dump on the land or chemical fertilisers which are put on the land for agricultural purposes causes land/ soil pollution.

If the soil quality deteriorates due to such practices, the soil will become infertile and no crops could be grown in future. The government has launched various schemes over the years to fight pollution but individual efforts can also play a vital role.

Start by replacing plastic bags for shopping with cloth bags, stopping littering on roads and stopping wasting water are some of the basic things to start with that can lead to big changes in the environment.

Also Read: Essay on Green Energy PDF: 150 and 250 Words

One of the most critical threats faced by our planet in the present-day scenario. Environmental pollution is a global issue affecting people around the world. It is occurring in different forms, whether by affecting the air we breathe or the water resources we utilise for several purposes.

Air pollution came into being with an increase in the level of carbon dioxide, with the increase in pollutants which are contaminating the air and causing breathing discomfort as well as skin diseases to human beings. Talking about the other aspect, there is no life without water.

The water bodies are polluting and becoming unsafe for drinking or any other use because of industrial development, rapid urbanisation and various other reasons. Due to air pollution, diseases that can occur in human beings are asthma, various skin diseases, cancer, etc. Therefore, it is the essential need of the hour to take serious steps to reduce pollution to its core.

At a personal level, we can minimise environmental pollution by taking public transport or carpools to reduce vehicular smoke, avoiding firecrackers at festivals and celebrations can also cut down on air and noise pollution, and not using fertilisers and pesticides which can cause both water and soil pollution, and switching over to organic farming. The government can also bring strict rules and regulations to lessen industrial pollution.  

To sum up, any type of pollution is harmful to the environment with serious consequences like global warming, uneven climatic changes, etc. Due to our greediness and illegal human activities, the innocent lives of animals are lost. The time has come to join hands and work towards preserving and protecting the environment for the present as well as future generations.

Also Read: Essay on Environment: Examples and Tips

Find a sample of a short essay on pollution below:

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For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay-writing page and follow Leverage Edu ! 

Nikita Puri

Nikita is a creative writer and editor, who is always ready to learn new skills. She has great knowledge about study abroad universities, researching and writing blogs about them. Being a perfectionist, she has a habit of keeping her tasks complete on time before the OCD hits her. When Nikita is not busy working, you can find her eating while binge-watching The office. Also, she breathes music. She has done her bachelor's from Delhi University and her master's from Jamia Millia Islamia.

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pollution is very harmful to the environment. By pollution many diseases and virus like coronavirus. So JOIN THE GREEN REVOLUTION AND STOP POLLUTION

PLANT MORE AND MORE TREES TO REDUCE POLLUTION

really plz stop pollution. we are dying cause of that

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How to Protect Yourself From Wildfire Smoke

Scientists are still studying the long-term health effects of smoke exposure.

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By Dani Blum

Extreme wildfires are becoming more common, more intense and more of a pressing problem for public health. This week, more than 20,000 people in Northern California evacuated their homes as flames destroyed houses and cars.

Wildfire smoke presents its own challenge. There is most likely no safe level of exposure to wildfire smoke, said Jennifer Stowell, a climate and health research scientist at the Boston University School of Public Health. But there are precautions you can take to minimize its toll on your health.

What to look for

Don’t rely on only your eyes to determine when the air quality is poor, said Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, a pulmonary and critical care medicine physician at Johns Hopkins Medicine. Get in the habit of checking air quality indexes every day, especially in the summer, when wildfires are more common. You can look at AirNow.Gov for a measure of your local air quality; Fire.airnow.gov also has a helpful map of fire and smoke patterns and how they are influencing air quality.

It’s also important to know your personal risk. Wildfire smoke can exacerbate respiratory conditions: People with asthma may be prone to more attacks, and those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease can experience more difficulty breathing.

It can sometimes take a week or so for those symptoms to appear after you breathe in wildfire smoke, Dr. Stowell said.

Inhaling smoke can also trigger inflammation in the body, which may put people with underlying chronic conditions like diabetes, chronic kidney disease and heart disease at increased risk of getting sick.

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Smoking and the Environment – How Smoking Harms the Planet

Smoking’s harms to users are well-known and widely-accepted, but smoking hurts more than just smokers. through deforestation, cigarette butt litter and air pollution, it harms the entire planet..

Tobacco use causes almost six million deaths per year, according to the CDC , and harms nearly every organ in the body. Thankfully, almost everybody is now aware of this, but the full scope of the harm caused by tobacco can’t be appreciated without considering the impact smoking has on the environment. This is a multi-faceted issue, with the link between smoking and the environment encompassing issues related to air pollution, the impacts of the growing of tobacco and the effect of the widespread littering of cigarette butts. If nothing else, this all goes to show that a tobacco-free world would be greener, too.

Smoking and Air Pollution

Second-hand smoke is widely recognized as a cause of disease in both humans and animals, but for the issue of smoking and the environment, the most important impact is how it affects air quality overall. Air pollution comes from a variety of sources, but some are more avoidable than others. For instance, pollution from vehicles is a significant issue for air quality around the world, but with so many people depending on cars, trucks and other pollution sources for their jobs and to transport materials they need, this is a hard issue to solve.

Smoking, however, is not necessary for the functioning of society, and in general is detrimental to it. Abundant evidence from various sources show marked improvements in air quality when smoking is banned. For example, when New York instituted a state-wide smoke-free law, levels of fine particulate matter in 20 locations studied decreased by 84%, and many other locations show similar results around the world.

The Impact of Tobacco Growing and Deforestation

Arguably the most important thing for the relationship between smoking and the environment is the impact of growing tobacco . Firstly, tobacco is grown as a mono-crop, and this means that large amounts of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides are used when growing it. This can be hazardous to the environment, but the biggest issue is the risks to workers on tobacco farms. This can be mitigated with strong regulations, but tobacco is often grown in countries with very few controls to protect workers.

However, the biggest impact of smoking on the environment is deforestation. This occurs both to provide land for the growing of tobacco, but also to supply wood which is burned during the flue-curing process many tobaccos go through. In total, it’s estimated that 200,000 hectares of land are cleared annually to make room for tobacco cultivation.

The combined impacts of these two contributors to deforestation in countries like Tanzania make tobacco cultivation a particular issue. In Tanzania, four-fifths of the tobacco grown there is flue-cured, leading to a total of over 61,000 hectares of forested land being cleared for the purpose. The process of burning wood also releases CO 2 , so flue-curing directly contributes to global climate change.

Cigarette Butt Litter and the Environment

There is yet another issue related to smoking and the environment, and this relates to what happens to the remainders of cigarettes after they’re smoked. Cigarette butts are one of the most littered items throughout the world, with an estimated 4 trillion butts littered across the world each year.

Cigarette butts are not biodegradable , but they do break into smaller pieces under the influence of ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Cigarette butts also leach chemicals such as nicotine, arsenic, heavy metals and others like ethylphenol into the environment. As well as the direct effects on animals who ingest the cigarette butts, the chemicals released into the environment can indirectly damage animals, particularly marine animals. This is more serious because even cigarettes thrown onto the street far away from bodies of water can get swept into drains and find their way into the water system.

Reducing the Environmental Impacts of Tobacco

Smoking and the environment are intimately linked, and coming up with a way to solve the various problems should be a priority. The simplest solution is to reduce the number of smokers in society. This would reduce the demand for tobacco, which would eventually lead to less of it being grown, and also to less cigarette butts being littered.

However, there are other, more targeted strategies that can be used. For example, providing more places for smokers to dispose of their cigarette butts would reduce the issue of littering, and establishing rules governing the use of pesticides on tobacco farms could help exposed workers.

It’s important to remember, though, that the impacts of smoking on the environment are wide-ranging and hard to tackle. As challenging as it may be, the most reliable solution to the problem is to take steps to move towards a smoke-free world.

Pollution is the introduction of harmful materials into the environment. These harmful materials are called pollutants.

Biology, Ecology, Health, Earth Science, Geography

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Pollution is the introduction of harmful materials into the environment . These harmful materials are called pollutants . Pollutants can be natural, such as volcanic ash . They can also be created by human activity, such as trash or runoff produced by factories. Pollutants damage the quality of air, water, and land. Many things that are useful to people produce pollution. Cars spew pollutants from their exhaust pipes. Burning coal to create electricity pollutes the air. Industries and homes generate garbage and sewage that can pollute the land and water. Pesticides —chemical poisons used to kill weeds and insects— seep into waterways and harm wildlife . All living things—from one-celled microbes to blue whales—depend on Earth ’s supply of air and water. When these resources are polluted, all forms of life are threatened. Pollution is a global problem. Although urban areas are usually more polluted than the countryside, pollution can spread to remote places where no people live. For example, pesticides and other chemicals have been found in the Antarctic ice sheet . In the middle of the northern Pacific Ocean, a huge collection of microscopic plastic particles forms what is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch . Air and water currents carry pollution. Ocean currents and migrating fish carry marine pollutants far and wide. Winds can pick up radioactive material accidentally released from a nuclear reactor and scatter it around the world. Smoke from a factory in one country drifts into another country. In the past, visitors to Big Bend National Park in the U.S. state of Texas could see 290 kilometers (180 miles) across the vast landscape . Now, coal-burning power plants in Texas and the neighboring state of Chihuahua, Mexico have spewed so much pollution into the air that visitors to Big Bend can sometimes see only 50 kilometers (30 miles). The three major types of pollution are air pollution , water pollution , and land pollution . Air Pollution Sometimes, air pollution is visible . A person can see dark smoke pour from the exhaust pipes of large trucks or factories, for example. More often, however, air pollution is invisible . Polluted air can be dangerous, even if the pollutants are invisible. It can make people’s eyes burn and make them have difficulty breathing. It can also increase the risk of lung cancer . Sometimes, air pollution kills quickly. In 1984, an accident at a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, released a deadly gas into the air. At least 8,000 people died within days. Hundreds of thou sands more were permanently injured. Natural disasters can also cause air pollution to increase quickly. When volcanoes erupt , they eject volcanic ash and gases into the atmosphere . Volcanic ash can discolor the sky for months. After the eruption of the Indonesian volcano of Krakatoa in 1883, ash darkened the sky around the world. The dimmer sky caused fewer crops to be harvested as far away as Europe and North America. For years, meteorologists tracked what was known as the “equatorial smoke stream .” In fact, this smoke stream was a jet stream , a wind high in Earth’s atmosphere that Krakatoa’s air pollution made visible. Volcanic gases , such as sulfur dioxide , can kill nearby residents and make the soil infertile for years. Mount Vesuvius, a volcano in Italy, famously erupted in 79, killing hundreds of residents of the nearby towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Most victims of Vesuvius were not killed by lava or landslides caused by the eruption. They were choked, or asphyxiated , by deadly volcanic gases. In 1986, a toxic cloud developed over Lake Nyos, Cameroon. Lake Nyos sits in the crater of a volcano. Though the volcano did not erupt, it did eject volcanic gases into the lake. The heated gases passed through the water of the lake and collected as a cloud that descended the slopes of the volcano and into nearby valleys . As the toxic cloud moved across the landscape, it killed birds and other organisms in their natural habitat . This air pollution also killed thousands of cattle and as many as 1,700 people. Most air pollution is not natural, however. It comes from burning fossil fuels —coal, oil , and natural gas . When gasoline is burned to power cars and trucks, it produces carbon monoxide , a colorless, odorless gas. The gas is harmful in high concentrations , or amounts. City traffic produces highly concentrated carbon monoxide. Cars and factories produce other common pollutants, including nitrogen oxide , sulfur dioxide, and hydrocarbons . These chemicals react with sunlight to produce smog , a thick fog or haze of air pollution. The smog is so thick in Linfen, China, that people can seldom see the sun. Smog can be brown or grayish blue, depending on which pollutants are in it. Smog makes breathing difficult, especially for children and older adults. Some cities that suffer from extreme smog issue air pollution warnings. The government of Hong Kong, for example, will warn people not to go outside or engage in strenuous physical activity (such as running or swimming) when smog is very thick.

When air pollutants such as nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide mix with moisture, they change into acids . They then fall back to earth as acid rain . Wind often carries acid rain far from the pollution source. Pollutants produced by factories and power plants in Spain can fall as acid rain in Norway. Acid rain can kill all the trees in a forest . It can also devastate lakes, streams, and other waterways. When lakes become acidic, fish can’t survive . In Sweden, acid rain created thousands of “ dead lakes ,” where fish no longer live. Acid rain also wears away marble and other kinds of stone . It has erased the words on gravestones and damaged many historic buildings and monuments . The Taj Mahal , in Agra, India, was once gleaming white. Years of exposure to acid rain has left it pale. Governments have tried to prevent acid rain by limiting the amount of pollutants released into the air. In Europe and North America, they have had some success, but acid rain remains a major problem in the developing world , especially Asia. Greenhouse gases are another source of air pollution. Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane occur naturally in the atmosphere. In fact, they are necessary for life on Earth. They absorb sunlight reflected from Earth, preventing it from escaping into space. By trapping heat in the atmosphere, they keep Earth warm enough for people to live. This is called the greenhouse effect . But human activities such as burning fossil fuels and destroying forests have increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This has increased the greenhouse effect, and average temperatures across the globe are rising. The decade that began in the year 2000 was the warmest on record. This increase in worldwide average temperatures, caused in part by human activity, is called global warming . Global warming is causing ice sheets and glaciers to melt. The melting ice is causing sea levels to rise at a rate of two millimeters (0.09 inches) per year. The rising seas will eventually flood low-lying coastal regions . Entire nations, such as the islands of Maldives, are threatened by this climate change . Global warming also contributes to the phenomenon of ocean acidification . Ocean acidification is the process of ocean waters absorbing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Fewer organisms can survive in warmer, less salty waters. The ocean food web is threatened as plants and animals such as coral fail to adapt to more acidic oceans. Scientists have predicted that global warming will cause an increase in severe storms . It will also cause more droughts in some regions and more flooding in others. The change in average temperatures is already shrinking some habitats, the regions where plants and animals naturally live. Polar bears hunt seals from sea ice in the Arctic. The melting ice is forcing polar bears to travel farther to find food , and their numbers are shrinking. People and governments can respond quickly and effectively to reduce air pollution. Chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are a dangerous form of air pollution that governments worked to reduce in the 1980s and 1990s. CFCs are found in gases that cool refrigerators, in foam products, and in aerosol cans . CFCs damage the ozone layer , a region in Earth’s upper atmosphere. The ozone layer protects Earth by absorbing much of the sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation . When people are exposed to more ultraviolet radiation, they are more likely to develop skin cancer, eye diseases, and other illnesses. In the 1980s, scientists noticed that the ozone layer over Antarctica was thinning. This is often called the “ ozone hole .” No one lives permanently in Antarctica. But Australia, the home of more than 22 million people, lies at the edge of the hole. In the 1990s, the Australian government began an effort to warn people of the dangers of too much sun. Many countries, including the United States, now severely limit the production of CFCs. Water Pollution Some polluted water looks muddy, smells bad, and has garbage floating in it. Some polluted water looks clean, but is filled with harmful chemicals you can’t see or smell. Polluted water is unsafe for drinking and swimming. Some people who drink polluted water are exposed to hazardous chemicals that may make them sick years later. Others consume bacteria and other tiny aquatic organisms that cause disease. The United Nations estimates that 4,000 children die every day from drinking dirty water. Sometimes, polluted water harms people indirectly. They get sick because the fish that live in polluted water are unsafe to eat. They have too many pollutants in their flesh. There are some natural sources of water pollution. Oil and natural gas, for example, can leak into oceans and lakes from natural underground sources. These sites are called petroleum seeps . The world’s largest petroleum seep is the Coal Oil Point Seep, off the coast of the U.S. state of California. The Coal Oil Point Seep releases so much oil that tar balls wash up on nearby beaches . Tar balls are small, sticky pieces of pollution that eventually decompose in the ocean.

Human activity also contributes to water pollution. Chemicals and oils from factories are sometimes dumped or seep into waterways. These chemicals are called runoff. Chemicals in runoff can create a toxic environment for aquatic life. Runoff can also help create a fertile environment for cyanobacteria , also called blue-green algae . Cyanobacteria reproduce rapidly, creating a harmful algal bloom (HAB) . Harmful algal blooms prevent organisms such as plants and fish from living in the ocean. They are associated with “ dead zones ” in the world’s lakes and rivers, places where little life exists below surface water. Mining and drilling can also contribute to water pollution. Acid mine drainage (AMD) is a major contributor to pollution of rivers and streams near coal mines . Acid helps miners remove coal from the surrounding rocks . The acid is washed into streams and rivers, where it reacts with rocks and sand. It releases chemical sulfur from the rocks and sand, creating a river rich in sulfuric acid . Sulfuric acid is toxic to plants, fish, and other aquatic organisms. Sulfuric acid is also toxic to people, making rivers polluted by AMD dangerous sources of water for drinking and hygiene . Oil spills are another source of water pollution. In April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, causing oil to gush from the ocean floor. In the following months, hundreds of millions of gallons of oil spewed into the gulf waters. The spill produced large plumes of oil under the sea and an oil slick on the surface as large as 24,000 square kilometers (9,100 square miles). The oil slick coated wetlands in the U.S. states of Louisiana and Mississippi, killing marsh plants and aquatic organisms such as crabs and fish. Birds, such as pelicans , became coated in oil and were unable to fly or access food. More than two million animals died as a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Buried chemical waste can also pollute water supplies. For many years, people disposed of chemical wastes carelessly, not realizing its dangers. In the 1970s, people living in the Love Canal area in Niagara Falls, New York, suffered from extremely high rates of cancer and birth defects . It was discovered that a chemical waste dump had poisoned the area’s water. In 1978, 800 families living in Love Canal had to a bandon their homes. If not disposed of properly, radioactive waste from nuclear power plants can escape into the environment. Radioactive waste can harm living things and pollute the water. Sewage that has not been properly treated is a common source of water pollution. Many cities around the world have poor sewage systems and sewage treatment plants. Delhi, the capital of India, is home to more than 21 million people. More than half the sewage and other waste produced in the city are dumped into the Yamuna River. This pollution makes the river dangerous to use as a source of water for drinking or hygiene. It also reduces the river’s fishery , resulting in less food for the local community. A major source of water pollution is fertilizer used in agriculture . Fertilizer is material added to soil to make plants grow larger and faster. Fertilizers usually contain large amounts of the elements nitrogen and phosphorus , which help plants grow. Rainwater washes fertilizer into streams and lakes. There, the nitrogen and phosphorus cause cyanobacteria to form harmful algal blooms. Rain washes other pollutants into streams and lakes. It picks up animal waste from cattle ranches. Cars drip oil onto the street, and rain carries it into storm drains , which lead to waterways such as rivers and seas. Rain sometimes washes chemical pesticides off of plants and into streams. Pesticides can also seep into groundwater , the water beneath the surface of the Earth. Heat can pollute water. Power plants, for example, produce a huge amount of heat. Power plants are often located on rivers so they can use the water as a coolant . Cool water circulates through the plant, absorbing heat. The heated water is then returned to the river. Aquatic creatures are sensitive to changes in temperature. Some fish, for example, can only live in cold water. Warmer river temperatures prevent fish eggs from hatching. Warmer river water also contributes to harmful algal blooms. Another type of water pollution is simple garbage. The Citarum River in Indonesia, for example, has so much garbage floating in it that you cannot see the water. Floating trash makes the river difficult to fish in. Aquatic animals such as fish and turtles mistake trash, such as plastic bags, for food. Plastic bags and twine can kill many ocean creatures. Chemical pollutants in trash can also pollute the water, making it toxic for fish and people who use the river as a source of drinking water. The fish that are caught in a polluted river often have high levels of chemical toxins in their flesh. People absorb these toxins as they eat the fish. Garbage also fouls the ocean. Many plastic bottles and other pieces of trash are thrown overboard from boats. The wind blows trash out to sea. Ocean currents carry plastics and other floating trash to certain places on the globe, where it cannot escape. The largest of these areas, called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, is in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. According to some estimates, this garbage patch is the size of Texas. The trash is a threat to fish and seabirds, which mistake the plastic for food. Many of the plastics are covered with chemical pollutants. Land Pollution Many of the same pollutants that foul the water also harm the land. Mining sometimes leaves the soil contaminated with dangerous chemicals. Pesticides and fertilizers from agricultural fields are blown by the wind. They can harm plants, animals, and sometimes people. Some fruits and vegetables absorb the pesticides that help them grow. When people consume the fruits and vegetables, the pesticides enter their bodies. Some pesticides can cause cancer and other diseases. A pesticide called DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) was once commonly used to kill insects, especially mosquitoes. In many parts of the world, mosquitoes carry a disease called malaria , which kills a million people every year. Swiss chemist Paul Hermann Muller was awarded the Nobel Prize for his understanding of how DDT can control insects and other pests. DDT is responsible for reducing malaria in places such as Taiwan and Sri Lanka. In 1962, American biologist Rachel Carson wrote a book called Silent Spring , which discussed the dangers of DDT. She argued that it could contribute to cancer in humans. She also explained how it was destroying bird eggs, which caused the number of bald eagles, brown pelicans, and ospreys to drop. In 1972, the United States banned the use of DDT. Many other countries also banned it. But DDT didn’t disappear entirely. Today, many governments support the use of DDT because it remains the most effective way to combat malaria. Trash is another form of land pollution. Around the world, paper, cans, glass jars, plastic products, and junked cars and appliances mar the landscape. Litter makes it difficult for plants and other producers in the food web to create nutrients . Animals can die if they mistakenly eat plastic. Garbage often contains dangerous pollutants such as oils, chemicals, and ink. These pollutants can leech into the soil and harm plants, animals, and people. Inefficient garbage collection systems contribute to land pollution. Often, the garbage is picked up and brought to a dump, or landfill . Garbage is buried in landfills. Sometimes, communities produce so much garbage that their landfills are filling up. They are running out of places to dump their trash. A massive landfill near Quezon City, Philippines, was the site of a land pollution tragedy in 2000. Hundreds of people lived on the slopes of the Quezon City landfill. These people made their living from recycling and selling items found in the landfill. However, the landfill was not secure. Heavy rains caused a trash landslide, killing 218 people. Sometimes, landfills are not completely sealed off from the land around them. Pollutants from the landfill leak into the earth in which they are buried. Plants that grow in the earth may be contaminated, and the herbivores that eat the plants also become contaminated. So do the predators that consume the herbivores. This process, where a chemical builds up in each level of the food web, is called bioaccumulation . Pollutants leaked from landfills also leak into local groundwater supplies. There, the aquatic food web (from microscopic algae to fish to predators such as sharks or eagles) can suffer from bioaccumulation of toxic chemicals. Some communities do not have adequate garbage collection systems, and trash lines the side of roads. In other places, garbage washes up on beaches. Kamilo Beach, in the U.S. state of Hawai'i, is littered with plastic bags and bottles carried in by the tide . The trash is dangerous to ocean life and reduces economic activity in the area. Tourism is Hawai'i’s largest industry . Polluted beaches discourage tourists from investing in the area’s hotels, restaurants, and recreational activities. Some cities incinerate , or burn, their garbage. Incinerating trash gets rid of it, but it can release dangerous heavy metals and chemicals into the air. So while trash incinerators can help with the problem of land pollution, they sometimes add to the problem of air pollution. Reducing Pollution Around the world, people and governments are making efforts to combat pollution. Recycling, for instance, is becoming more common. In recycling, trash is processed so its useful materials can be used again. Glass, aluminum cans, and many types of plastic can be melted and reused . Paper can be broken down and turned into new paper. Recycling reduces the amount of garbage that ends up in landfills, incinerators, and waterways. Austria and Switzerland have the highest recycling rates. These nations recycle between 50 and 60 percent of their garbage. The United States recycles about 30 percent of its garbage. Governments can combat pollution by passing laws that limit the amount and types of chemicals factories and agribusinesses are allowed to use. The smoke from coal-burning power plants can be filtered. People and businesses that illegally dump pollutants into the land, water, and air can be fined for millions of dollars. Some government programs, such as the Superfund program in the United States, can force polluters to clean up the sites they polluted. International agreements can also reduce pollution. The Kyoto Protocol , a United Nations agreement to limit the emission of greenhouse gases, has been signed by 191 countries. The United States, the world’s second-largest producer of greenhouse gases, did not sign the agreement. Other countries, such as China, the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases, have not met their goals. Still, many gains have been made. In 1969, the Cuyahoga River, in the U.S. state of Ohio, was so clogged with oil and trash that it caught on fire. The fire helped spur the Clean Water Act of 1972. This law limited what pollutants could be released into water and set standards for how clean water should be. Today, the Cuyahoga River is much cleaner. Fish have returned to regions of the river where they once could not survive. But even as some rivers are becoming cleaner, others are becoming more polluted. As countries around the world become wealthier, some forms of pollution increase. Countries with growing economies usually need more power plants, which produce more pollutants. Reducing pollution requires environmental, political, and economic leadership. Developed nations must work to reduce and recycle their materials, while developing nations must work to strengthen their economies without destroying the environment. Developed and developing countries must work together toward the common goal of protecting the environment for future use.

How Long Does It Last? Different materials decompose at different rates. How long does it take for these common types of trash to break down?

• Paper: 2-4 weeks
• Orange peel: 6 months
• Milk carton: 5 years
• Plastic bag: 15 years
• Tin can: 100 years
• Plastic bottle: 450 years
• Glass bottle: 500 years
• Styrofoam: Never

Indoor Air Pollution The air inside your house can be polluted. Air and carpet cleaners, insect sprays, and cigarettes are all sources of indoor air pollution.

Light Pollution Light pollution is the excess amount of light in the night sky. Light pollution, also called photopollution, is almost always found in urban areas. Light pollution can disrupt ecosystems by confusing the distinction between night and day. Nocturnal animals, those that are active at night, may venture out during the day, while diurnal animals, which are active during daylight hours, may remain active well into the night. Feeding and sleep patterns may be confused. Light pollution also indicates an excess use of energy. The dark-sky movement is a campaign by people to reduce light pollution. This would reduce energy use, allow ecosystems to function more normally, and allow scientists and stargazers to observe the atmosphere.

Noise Pollution Noise pollution is the constant presence of loud, disruptive noises in an area. Usually, noise pollution is caused by construction or nearby transportation facilities, such as airports. Noise pollution is unpleasant, and can be dangerous. Some songbirds, such as robins, are unable to communicate or find food in the presence of heavy noise pollution. The sound waves produced by some noise pollutants can disrupt the sonar used by marine animals to communicate or locate food.

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Educator reviewer, last updated.

March 6, 2024

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National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

Your environment. your health., air pollution and your health, introduction.

Air Pollution

Air pollution is a familiar environmental health hazard. We know what we’re looking at when brown haze settles over a city, exhaust billows across a busy highway, or a plume rises from a smokestack. Some air pollution is not seen, but its pungent smell alerts you.

It is a major threat to global health and prosperity. Air pollution, in all forms, is responsible for more than 6.5 million deaths each year globally , a number that has increased over the past two decades.

What Is Air Pollution?

Air pollution is a mix of hazardous substances from both human-made and natural sources.

Vehicle emissions, fuel oils and natural gas to heat homes, by-products of manufacturing and power generation, particularly coal-fueled power plants, and fumes from chemical production are the primary sources of human-made air pollution.

Nature releases hazardous substances into the air, such as smoke from wildfires, which are often caused by people; ash and gases from volcanic eruptions; and gases, like methane, which are emitted from decomposing organic matter in soils.

Traffic-Related Air Pollution (TRAP), a mixture of gasses and particles, has most of the elements of human-made air pollution: ground-level ozone, various forms of carbon, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and fine particulate matter.

Ozone , an atmospheric gas, is often called smog when at ground level. It is created when pollutants emitted by cars, power plants, industrial boilers, refineries, and other sources chemically react in the presence of sunlight.

Noxious gases , which include carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides (NOx), and sulfur oxides (SOx), are components of motor vehicle emissions and byproducts of industrial processes.

Particulate matter (PM) is composed of chemicals such as sulfates, nitrates, carbon, or mineral dusts. Vehicle and industrial emissions from fossil fuel combustion, cigarette smoke, and burning organic matter, such as wildfires, all contain PM.

A subset of PM, fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) is 30 times thinner than a human hair. It can be inhaled deeply into lung tissue and contribute to serious health problems. PM 2.5 accounts for most health effects due to air pollution in the U.S.

Volatile organic compounds (VOC) vaporize at or near room temperature—hence, the designation volatile. They are called organic because they contain carbon. VOCs are given off by paints, cleaning supplies, pesticides, some furnishings, and even craft materials like glue. Gasoline and natural gas are major sources of VOCs, which are released during combustion.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) are organic compounds containing carbon and hydrogen. Of more than 100 PAHs known to be widespread in the environment, 15 are listed in the Report on Carcinogens . In addition to combustion, many industrial processes, such as iron, steel, and rubber product manufacturing, as well as power generation, also produce PAHs as a by-product. PAHs are also found in particulate matter.

Air Pollution and Climate Change

Air pollution and climate change affect each other through complex interactions in the atmosphere. Air pollution is intricately linked with climate change because both problems come largely from the same sources, such as emissions from burning fossil fuels. Both are threats to people’s health and the environment worldwide. Read more: Health Impacts of Air Quality .

What is NIEHS Doing?

Over its 50-plus year history, NIEHS has been a leader in air pollution research. The institute continues to fund and conduct research into how air pollution affects health and the population groups who are most affected.

How does air pollution affect our health?

When the National Ambient Air Quality Standards were established in 1970, air pollution was regarded primarily as a threat to respiratory health. In 1993, NIEHS researchers published the landmark Six Cities Study , which established an association between fine particulate matter and mortality.

Air pollution exposure is associated with oxidative stress and inflammation in human cells, which may lay a foundation for chronic diseases and cancer. In 2013, the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization (WHO) classified air pollution as a human carcinogen .

Many studies have established that short-term exposure to higher levels of outdoor air pollution is associated with reduced lung function, asthma, cardiac problems, emergency department visits, and hospital admissions . Mortality rates related to air pollution are also a concern. Exposure to the air pollutant PM2.5 is associated with an increased risk of death .

A team of researchers, partially funded by NIEHS, found that deaths decreased after air pollution regulations were implemented and coal-powered plants were retired. The study data covered 21 years. More specifically, they found exposure to PM2.5 from coal was associated with a mortality risk that was twice as high as the risk from exposure to PM2.5 from all sources. PM2.5 from coal is high in sulfur dioxide, black carbon, and metals.

Public health concerns related to high air pollution exposures include cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, diabetes mellitus, obesity, and reproductive, neurological, and immune system disorders.

Research on air pollution and health effects continually advances.

• A large study of more than 57,000 women found living near major roadways may increase a woman’s risk for breast cancer .
• Occupational exposure to benzene, an industrial chemical and component of gasoline, can cause leukemia and is associated with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma .
• A long-term study, 2000-2016, found an association between lung cancer incidence and increased reliance on coal for energy generation.
• Using a national dataset of older adults, researchers found that 10-year long exposures to PM2.5 and NO2 increased the risks of colorectal and prostate cancers .

Cardiovascular Disease

• Fine particulate matter can impair blood vessel function and speed up calcification in arteries .
• NIEHS researchers established links between short-term daily exposure by post-menopausal women to nitrogen oxides and increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke .
• For some older Americans, exposure to TRAP can result in lowered levels of high-density lipoprotein , sometimes called good cholesterol, increasing their risk for cardiovascular disease.
• According to a National Toxicology Program (NTP) report , TRAP exposure also increases a pregnant woman’s risk for dangerous changes in blood pressure, known as hypertensive disorders, which are a leading cause of pre-term birth, low birth weight, and maternal and fetal illness and death.

Respiratory Disease

• Air pollution can affect lung development and is implicated in the development of emphysema , asthma, and other respiratory diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
• Increases in asthma prevalence and severity are linked to urbanization and outdoor air pollution. Children living in low-income urban areas tend to have more asthma cases than others. Research published in 2023 tied two air pollutants, ozone and PM2.5, to asthma-related changes in children’s airways.
• In a study of 50,000 women across the country, long-term exposure to PM2.5, PM10, and nitrogen dioxide were linked to chronic bronchitis .
• In 2020, a major public health challenge was confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic and wildfires across the western U.S. Building on a well-established connection between air pollution and respiratory-tract infections, a study linked exposure to wildfire smoke with more severe cases of COVID-19 and deaths .

Whom does air pollution affect the most?

Air pollution affects everyone’s health, but certain groups may be harmed more. Almost 9 out of 10 people who live in urban areas worldwide are affected by air pollution.

NIEHS-funded research indicates there are racial or ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in air pollution emissions. Air pollution emissions have decreased over past decades but the changes vary by demographics . This research found that people with annual incomes above $70,000 generally experience greater declines in industry, energy, transportation, residential, and commercial-related emissions than do people with lower incomes.

The NIEHS-funded Children’s Health Study at the University of Southern California is one of the largest studies of the long-term effects of air pollution on children’s respiratory health. Among its findings:

• Higher air pollution levels increase short-term respiratory infections, which lead to more school absences.
• Children who play several outdoor sports and live in high ozone communities are more likely to develop asthma.
• Children living near busy roads have an increased chance of developing asthma.
• Children who were exposed to high levels of air pollutants were more likely to develop bronchitis symptoms in adulthood .
• Living in communities with higher pollution levels can cause lung damage .

Other studies on women and children

• Breathing PM 2.5, even at relatively low levels, may alter the size of a child's developing brain , which may ultimately increase the risk for cognitive and emotional problems later in adolescence.
• In a large-scale study that looked at more than 1 million birth records, prenatal PM2.5 exposure was associated with an increased risk of cerebral palsy . While this finding adds to knowledge about environmental risk factors for cerebral palsy development and how to reduce the chance of it developing, further studies are needed. Prenatal exposure to PAHs was associated with brain development effects, slower processing speed, attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms, and other neurobehavioral problems in urban youth .
• Prenatal exposure to air pollution may play a role in the development of ADHD-related behavior problems in childhood.
• Prenatal exposure to particulate matter was associated with low birth weight .
• Women exposed to high levels of fine particulate matter during pregnancy, particularly in the third trimester, may have up to twice the risk of having a child with autism .
• Second and third trimester exposure to PM2.5 might increase the chance of those children having high blood pressure in early life .
• A large study of more than 300,000 women found long-term exposure to air pollution, especially ozone and PM2.5, during and after pregnancy increases the risk of postpartum depression .
• The study with data on more than 5 million babies assessed associations between prenatal exposure to wildfire smoke and the risk of preterm birth. The researchers found that exposure to high levels of wildfire particulate matter during any period of pregnancy was associated with a greater chance of preterm birth .

Older adults

• Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias are a public health challenge for aging populations. NIEHS-funded researchers at the University of Washington identified a link between air pollution and dementias. This well-conducted study adds considerable evidence that ambient air fine particles increase risk of dementias . Conversely, a multi-year study published in 2022 shows improved air quality is associated with lower risk of dementia in older women. The researchers also stated this decline in dementia risk was equivalent to taking nearly 2 1/2 years off the age of the women studied.
• A large, nationally representative study looked at PM2.5 from many sources and incident dementia. Emissions from agriculture, traffic, coal combustion, and wildfires, in particular, were associated with increased rates of dementia .
• Air pollution was linked to a greater chance of developing several neurological disorders , including Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and other dementias. Hospital admissions data from 63 million older adults in the U.S., obtained over 17 years (2000-2016), was analyzed along with estimated PM2.5 concentrations by zip code to conduct the study. Another study with data from 10-year long exposures also found a relationship between CO and PM2.5 and an increased chance of developing Parkinson’s disease .
• Osteoporosis affects women more than men. A large study associated high levels of air pollutants with bone damage , particularly in the lumbar spine, among postmenopausal women. This study expands previous findings linking air pollution and bone damage.
• Nutrients may counter some harmful effects from air pollution. A 2020 study found omega-3 fatty acids , obtained by eating certain fish, may protect against PM2.5-associated brain shrinkage in older women.

Rural dwellers

• NIEHS supported a translational research project,  Addressing Air Pollution and Asthma (1MB) , that may lead to improved health for children suffering from asthma. They found that certain agricultural practices contribute to poor air quality and asthma among children. The team combined high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) cleaners and a home-based education program to reduce children’s exposure to pollutants in the home.
• Exposure to smoke from agricultural burns for as little as two weeks per year may worsen children's respiratory health outcomes, according to research supported by NIEHS. The study was conducted in response to community concerns about children's heath in Imperial Valley, a rural, agricultural area in southern California. Such agricultural burning is done to clear post-harvest crop remnants. This form of clearing is inexpensive, and farmers in the area do not have other economical methods for disposing of waste.
• In the rural U.S., large-scale animal feeding operations might compromise regional air quality through emission of pollutants, such as ammonia gas. A study found acute lung function problems in children with asthma in such areas.

NIEHS and community involvement

NIEHS supports community participation in the research process and encourages collaborative approaches that build capacity in communities to address environmental health concerns. Community-engaged research and citizen science are two types of collaborative research approaches.

For example, NIEHS grant recipients developed community-level tactics and public policies for reducing exposure to TRAP:

• Using high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filtration.
• Building land-use buffers and vegetation barriers.
• Improving urban design with gardens, parks, and street-side trees.
• Creating active-travel options, such as bicycling and walking paths.

Why improving air quality matters

• Air pollution and birth outcomes are linked as global public health concerns. Researchers analyzed indoor and outdoor air pollution data from all inhabited continents along with key pregnancy outcomes. Their findings indicate efforts to reduce PM2.5 exposure could lead to significant reductions in the number of low-birth weight and pre-term birth infants worldwide . Air pollution reduction would be especially beneficial for children born in low- and middle-income countries.
• Among children in Southern California, decreases in ambient nitrogen dioxide and PM 2.5 were associated with fewer cases of asthma .
• Bronchitis symptoms declined as pollution levels dropped in the Los Angeles region.
• Improving air quality may improve cognitive function and reduce dementia risk, according to studies supported in part by NIH and the Alzheimer's Association.
• When fossil-fuel power plants close, nearby air pollution is reduced. A study found the incidence of preterm births went down within 5 kilometers of retired coal and oil-powered plant locations.

Further Reading

Stories from the environmental factor (niehs newsletter).

• Air Pollution May Trigger DNA Modifications Tied to Alzheimer’s Disease (April 2024)
• Scientific Journeys: Using AI to Track a Major Source of Pollution (March 2024)
• Burn Pits’ Complex Emissions Simulated in NIEHS Grantee’s Laboratory (December 2023)
• Indoor Wood-burning May Be Linked to Lung Cancer in U.S. Women (September 2023)
• Everyday Air Pollution Can Harm Brain Development in Adolescents (September 2023)
• Wildfire Smoke, Other Air Pollution Can Harm Brain Health, Expert Says (August 2023)
• Burning Plastic Can Affect Air Quality, Public Health (August 2022)
• Interventions Needed to Slow Climate-driven Air Pollution, Researchers Note (March 2022)
• Air Pollution and Forever Chemicals Continue to Pose Health Risks (March 2022)
• Air Pollution Affects Children’s Brain Structure (February 2022)
• Increasing Evidence Links Air Pollution With Breast Cancer (November 2021)
• Fine Particulate Air Pollution Associated With Higher Dementia Risk (September 2021)

Printable Fact Sheets

Fact sheets.

Breast Cancer: Why the Environment Matters

Climate Change and Human Health

Lung Health and Your Environment

Partnerships for Environmental Public Health (PEPH)

• When Wildfires Hit Close to Home is about NIEHS-funded research on the complexity of urban wildfires and how they may affect human health.
• Wildfire Smoke and Children's Health

Additional Resources

• Air Pollution Linked to Dementia Cases (September 2023) – In this edition of NIH Research Matters, read about findings from the Health and Retirement Study, funded by the National Institute on Aging, that showed higher air pollution exposure was linked to an increased risk of dementia. After consideration of all sources, fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, from agriculture and wildfires were specifically associated with an increased risk of dementia. Reducing such exposures might help lower the incidence of dementia. The study was published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
• AirNow , a tool developed in partnership by several government agencies, allows you to monitor air quality in real time anywhere in the U.S. Simply enter your zip code as indicated on the website.
• EPA's Air Sensor Toolbox provides information on the operation and use of air-sensor monitoring systems for technology developers, air-quality managers, citizen scientists, and the public.
• NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative – This solutions-focused research initiative aims to reduce the health consequences associated with extreme weather events and evolving climate conditions. NIH has a strong history of creating innovative tools, technologies, and data-driven solutions to address global environmental problems.
• Smoke-ready Toolbox for Wildfires is a compendium of resources from the EPA to help educate you about the risks of smoke exposure and actions that protect your health.

Related Health Topics

• Exposure Science
• Gene and Environment Interaction
• Lung Diseases

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Cigarettes have a significant impact on the environment, not just health

by Hayley Dunning , Joanna Wilson 02 October 2018

A new report shows that the six trillion cigarettes produced yearly impact the environment through climate change, water and land use, and toxicity.

The devastating impact of the tobacco industry on human health is well known. However, a new report systematically outlines for the first time the substantial impact of the tobacco industry on the environment.

The report, authored by scientists from Imperial College London, is launched today at a meeting of the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

Finite resources

These impacts include climate change from energy and fuel consumption, water and soil depletion, and acidification. The global cultivation of tobacco requires substantial land use, water consumption, pesticides and labour – all finite resources that might be put to better use.

Smokers in the developed world are literally and metaphorically burning the resources of poorer countries. Dr Nicholas Hopkinson National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London

Globally, the cultivation of 32.4 Million tonnes (Mt) of green tobacco, used for the production of 6.48 Mt of dry tobacco in the six trillion cigarettes manufactured worldwide in 2014, contributes almost 84 Mt CO2 emissions to climate change – approximately 0.2% of the global total.

Professor Nick Voulvoulis, from the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial, said: “The environmental impacts of cigarette smoking, from cradle to grave, add significant pressures to the planet’s increasingly scarce resources and fragile ecosystems. Tobacco reduces our quality of life as it competes for resources with commodities valuable to livelihoods and development across the world.”

Energy intensive production

‘Processing’ – the curing of tobacco leaves to produce dry tobacco – is highly energy intensive, using coal or wood burning that contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation. Tobacco production also uses more than 22 billion tonnes of water.

The transport and manufacture of cigarettes, as well as their final use and disposal, also use more resources and leave further waste.

The world’s top cigarette consuming country – China – harvests over 3 Mt of tobacco leaves using over 1.5 million hectares of arable land and significant fresh water resources – while habitats suffer from water scarcity and nearly 134 million of its people are undernourished.

Crop yields

The report compares the impact of tobacco against other crops that typically require fewer inputs. Moreover, the yield of these crops is in many cases considerably higher than that of tobacco. For example, in Zimbabwe a hectare of land could produce 19 times more potatoes than the 1–1.2 tonnes of tobacco currently cultivated.

The evidence also suggests that growing alternative crops is better for farmers and their families, as child labour remains a major issue in tobacco production.

Almost 90% of all tobacco production is concentrated in the developing world – of the top ten tobacco producing countries, nine are developing and four are low-income food-deficit countries (LIFDCs), including India, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, and Malawi. However, the majority of cigarette consumption takes place in the developed world.

Dr Nicholas Hopkinson, from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial, said: “Smokers in the developed world are literally and metaphorically burning the resources of poorer countries.” 

A lifelong impact

The report also calculates the environmental impact of a single smoker over their lifetime: a person smoking a pack of 20 cigarettes per day for 50 years is responsible for 1.4 million litres of water depletion.

The report calls for a range of actions to address these issues. These include strengthening the global evidence base so that gaps in the current environmental data can be filled, encouraging sustainable investment as well as making sure that the environmental cost of tobacco is included in the price, and encouraging the industry to take responsibility for the whole life cycle of its products.

The report is based on a scientific analysis published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

View embedded Infogram content

Chart caption:

The chart above depicts tobacco's global footprint across the entire supply chain, drawing on statistics from 2014.

The graphic shows that:

• 22,200 megatons of water, 5.3 million hectares of land, 62.2 petajoules of energy and 27.2 megatons of material resources went into creating 6 trillion cigarettes
• The cigarettes were manufactured in nearly 500 factories across 125 countries, and produced 6.48 megatons of dry tobacco, and 32.4 megatons of green tobacco leaf
• All of this produced 25 megatons of solid waste, 55 magatons of waste water, and 84 megatons of C02 emissions

Article text (excluding photos or graphics) © Imperial College London.

Photos and graphics subject to third party copyright used with permission or © Imperial College London.

Hayley Dunning Communications Division

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• Published: 05 June 2024

Light painting photography makes particulate matter air pollution visible

• Francis D. Pope   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6583-8347 1   na1 ,
• Robin Price 2   na1 ,
• Katherine E. Woolley   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3743-9925 3 ,
• Carlo Luiu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1157-008X 1 ,
• Mohammed S. Alam   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5427-3122 4 ,
• William R. Avis   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7207-3992 5 ,
• Suzanne E. Bartington   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8179-7618 3 ,
• Dawit Debebe 6 ,
• Zerihun Getaneh 6 ,
• Sheila M. Greenfield 3 ,
• Rachel Howells 7 ,
• Mukesh Khare   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5848-2159 8 ,
• Abel Weldetinsae   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2946-6077 9 ,
• Chloe Lawson 10 ,
• Sumit K. Mishra 11 ,
• Ben Neal   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0009-8622-0832 10 ,
• Karen Newman 10 ,
• Ajit Singh   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0986-2064 1 , 3 ,
• Bikila Teklu Wodajo   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8788-1685 6 ,
• G. Neil Thomas   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2777-1847 3 &
• Faye Wilder 1  

Communications Earth & Environment volume  5 , Article number:  294 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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The World Health Organization estimates that air pollution causes approximately seven million premature deaths worldwide each year. Solutions to air pollution are well known, yet this rarely equates to easily actionable. Here we demonstrate how art science collaboration can successfully highlight the issue of air pollution and create wider civic discourse around its amelioration. We document a light painting photographic technique that uses data from calibrated low-cost particulate matter sensors to measure and depict air pollution. We also use a postcard technique to grasp individuals’ sentiments regarding air pollution. The photographs from three countries, Ethiopia, India and United Kingdom, visually highlight the importance of location and occupation upon human exposure. The photographs are used as a proxy to communicate and create dialogues, spaces and places about air pollution. The sentiment analysis shows how this approach can foster awareness and create agency for stakeholders to take actions to tackle air pollution.

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Introduction.

Air pollution is one of the main threats to both environmental and human health, and is a leading cause of premature death globally 1 . Indeed, the World Health Organization estimates 99% of the global population breathe polluted air, causing ~7 million premature deaths worldwide each year 2 , 3 . The situation is particularly challenging in Asia, where air pollution remains a problem in countries like India and China, despite many air quality policies and actions 4 , 5 . Similarly, African countries have been experiencing exponential deterioration in air quality over the last five decades, with several cities presenting levels of pollution 5–10 times higher than World Health Organization recommendations 6 . Particulate matter (PM) is the air pollutant most responsible for human morbidity and mortality. It has multiple impacts upon physical health and is responsible for diseases including heart disease, stroke and cancers 7 . A growing body of literature highlights that PM not only affects physical, but also mental and cognitive health 8 , 9 . As a consequence of the increasing evidence of the harmful effects of air pollution even at relatively low concentrations, in 2021, the World Health Organization decided to revise its air quality guidelines and reduce its recommendations for PM 2.5 annual concentrations from 10 to 5 μg m-3 and PM 10 from 20 to 15 μg m-3 10 .

Knowledge, perceptions and attitudes towards air pollution are key factors for achieving air pollution exposure reductions through behavioral change 11 . Moreover, perceptions of environmental harms are key determinants to changes in behavior 12 . Previous work on air pollution has highlighted the need for raising awareness of both the problem of air pollution and potential solutions with which to achieve reductions, especially in low-income settings 13 , 14 .

From an epidemiological perspective, the serious impacts of poor air quality upon morbidity and mortality are well understood. However, this body of knowledge is rarely translated into individual perceptions of air quality. Multiple interacting processes can cause public indifference to the issues of air pollution. First, the ubiquity of air pollution can cause disempowerment and subsequent ambivalence to its presence. Secondly, in most situations, air pollution is invisible. Unlike some other environmental hazards, (e.g. flooding), air pollution is difficult for the public to observe and react to. The individual PM particles are too small to be seen by the naked eye. However, PM scatters and absorbs light, resulting in hazes and loss of visibility under sufficiently high concentrations 15 . When hazes appear, air pollution becomes the subject of media and public interest (see for example the London smogs of the 1950s and contemporary Asian smogs). But when the observable hazes diminish, so does the newsworthiness of air pollution, despite its still present threat. Thirdly, individual agency over air pollution exposure is limited. This limitation is especially true with respect to outdoor pollution, with multiple sources that an individual has no control over 16 . Indoor air pollution offers more agency to individuals who can choose how to generate heat and light within dwellings. However, this agency is often limited by economic and infrastructure constraints 17 and lack of access to alternatives. Finally, excluding the most susceptible, the wider day-to-day risks of air pollution are small for the overall population, resulting in a correspondingly low motivation for individual changes in behavior. Furthermore, other contemporary issues, like access to food, water and housing, are more immediate.

Collaboration between the arts and sciences can be a useful tool for both informal knowledge dissemination and fostering citizen engagement and/or activism 18 . Art experiences are aligned with the affective domain of learning 19 . Art provides engagement, and elicits emotions and changes in attitude, while science education emphasizes cognitive understanding through logic 20 , creating reciprocal pathways for public engagement 21 . By holistically drawing from both the affective and cognitive domains, such collaboration encourages a more intuitive understanding of subjects. In this sense, art-science collaboration can be particularly effective in the context of climate change and environmental issues 22 . Art science collaboration can provide innovative, challenging and provocative ways to engage communities and, despite not providing solutions, can help in stimulating individuals’ perceptions, behavioral changes and raising awareness of the climate crisis 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 . This project was devised to creatively represent air pollution in different contexts and, by doing so, to provide places and spaces for discourse. The project follows the concepts of eco-didacticism 21 , 22 , 27 , 28 and aims to make invisible air pollution visible. This approach will provide an easy-to-comprehend artistic engagement tool to compare air pollution in different contexts. The team required artists and scientists to produce output that was scientifically robust, but also visually arresting, which could be understood by those uneducated in scientific practices.

Light painting is a photographic technique using long exposure times. Its effect is that only objects that are very still or bright are recorded in the final image. The technique was pioneered by Étienne-Jules Marey and Georges Demeny in 1889 as part of a research program using photography as a scientific tool to investigate biological motion. It was used for similar purposes by the Gilbreths to scientifically record the movements of clerical and factory workers as part of their time and motion research studies before being taken up and popularized by photographic artists such as Vilho Setälä, Man Ray, Wynn Bullock and Gijon Mili. Digital light painting uses digitally controlled light sources to create and control the effect within the image 20 . It was developed by Steve Mann as a means of visualizing sensor data 29 , and further advanced in recent work of Timo Arnall in the visualization of Wi-Fi strength 30 .

We applied digital light painting to visualize air pollution. Low-cost air pollution sensors that have previously been shown to provide accurate measurements were used to measure PM mass concentrations 31 , 32 . The real time signal from the sensor was used to control a moving Light Emitting Diode (LED) array, which was programmed to rapidly flash as a function of PM concentration. A relevant location was then chosen in which a story about air pollution could be told. A long exposure photograph is taken with the artist moving the LED array in front of the camera within the chosen scene. The duration of an individual LED flash is sufficiently short so that the flash becomes a dot on the photograph. The artist is not observed in the photo because they are moving, whereas the light flashes from the LED array are seen because they are bright. The photographs represent the PM concentration by creating an equivalency between the measured PM particles and the number of light dots in the photographs. This creates in the camera a visualization of the pollution, thus creating an affective visual metaphor of the PM being put under a microscope and lit up. The strength of the metaphor is that it allows for pollution levels to be instantly visually understood. Furthermore, it allows for easy comparisons between different locations.

Once developed, the light painting technique was used to document the levels of air pollution in multiple and contrasting international contexts. Port Talbot in Wales was the initial focus of the project. The interest came from the tension between the economic benefits of the Port Talbot steelworks in the community, being the city’s largest employer, and the environmental consequences of having one of the largest steelworks in Europe and a major source of local pollution 33 . Figure  1 shows the light painting for Port Talbot. The scene shows the Prince Street air quality monitoring site situated in front of the steelworks. Port Talbot Steelworks is an integrated steelmaking plant, using imported iron ore and coal as the major inputs. The air quality monitoring and light painting were performed at 9 pm (dusk) on 27/07/2017 and measured PM 2.5 concentrations in the range of 30–40 μg m-3. The PM 2.5 hourly average value measured at the regulatory Automatic Urban and Rural Network monitoring site for the same time was 24 μg m-3. There were large variations within the same day with no clear diurnal cycle: the mean average for the day (±1σ) was 21.9 ± 13.0 μg m-3.

Photo from the Prince Street air quality monitoring site with Tata Steelworks in the background - PM 2.5 30 − 40 μg m-3.

Figure  2 presents a diptych of two light paintings both taken in children’s playgrounds in India, but ~500 km distant from each other. The left-hand image is taken in Delhi, a megacity with an estimated population of 32 million in 2022, often observed to be one of the cities with the worst air quality globally 34 . The right-hand image was taken in Palampur, a hill station in the state of Himachal Pradesh which has some of the cleanest air in India. The images were taken within 5 days of each other. The Delhi air pollution was recorded in the range of 500–600 μg m-3, at least 40 times greater than the World Health Organization’s guideline values (15 μg m-3) for 24 h mean average 35 . The PM 2.5 values measured at the Palampur playground were in the range of 30–40 μg m-3, a factor of at least 12.5 times less than that measured in Delhi, highlighting how air pollution concentrations depend upon location, thereby setting up intra-country environmental inequalities.

a Children’s playground in Palampur (CSIR-IHBT), India, measured PM 2.5 30–40 μg m-3. b Nursery playground in Delhi (IIT Delhi), India, measured PM 2.5 500–600 μg m-3.

Figure  3 presents a diptych from Ethiopia, this time exploring how air pollution can vary dramatically between indoor and outdoor locations. Ethiopia, and more generally East African countries, are undergoing rapid economic development, industrialization and socio-demographic transition, with associated increases in ambient air pollutant levels 36 . The two light paintings were taken in the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, in 2020 within days of each other. The left-hand image shows an image taken outdoors on the Airport Road, an area of the capital that is well developed, with high-quality surfaces both on the road and surrounding pavement. Measured PM 2.5 concentrations were in the range of 10–20 μg m-3, a relatively low range observed by many cities around the world. Data from the https://www.airnow.govair website measuring PM 2.5 in Addis Ababa indicates this value is not unusual for the season. The outdoor image is juxtaposed with the indoor image, taken of a kitchen using multiple large biomass stoves for food preparation for a canteen. Even with a large room volume and reasonable ventilation to the outside, the PM 2.5 concentrations measured in the room were in the range of 150–200 μg m-3, a factor of ~10–20 times greater than what was measured nearby outdoors. The diptych visually makes apparent the vast differences in exposure to PM, which is dependent on where you live, work, and how you travel between these locations.

a Airport Road, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - PM 2.5 10–20 μg m-3. b Indoor Biomass Burning Kitchen, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia—PM 2.5 150–200 μg m-3.

Figures  4 and 5 provide an example of how the light painting technique can be used as an engagement and advocacy tool for air quality data visualization and create spaces and places for discussion about air pollution. The light painting images from Addis Ababa, shown in Fig.  3 , were printed onto posters (Fig.  4 ) and postcards (Fig.  5 ), with supplementary information about the air pollution situation in Addis Ababa, both within indoor and ambient environments. They also provided simple messages on how to reduce personal air pollution contributions and exposure to provide the observers with potential agency. The posters were placed in areas around the Addis Ababa Institute of Technology to engage with the student body. After discussions with the students about the posters, a postcard technique for real-time data collection was used to grasp their thoughts on the air pollution situation in Addis Ababa. The team distributed five types of postcards depicting photos of both ambient and household air pollution situations and asked students about what they thought about air pollution, what actions could be taken to address air pollution, and who should address air pollution. The postcards returned a set of 63 responses comprising 143 statements that were analyzed using the behavioral change wheel technique 37 . This qualitative analysis provides insights into the ‘capability’, ‘opportunity, and ‘motivation’ of the students regarding air pollution. The thematic analysis of the statements collected reveals a good level of awareness among the students of both household and ambient air pollution: “Addis air quality is poor” (Postcard_C15), and its causes. Students highlighted the impacts on the environmental impacts and health effects of exposure to air pollution and the associated types of diseases, including respiratory diseases, cancer and eye issues. They also identified as main causes of ambient air pollution transport-related air pollution and waste burning. Transport-related air pollution was predominantly associated with motorized traffic congestion, poor maintenance and the performance of vehicles’ engines, and polluting second-hand imported vehicles: “The exhaust in cars, I feel sorry for people walking on the street who have to breathe in, and for children as well” (Postcard_C9). Students identified waste burning as a cause of air pollution both in terms of industrial waste disposal: “We have to decrease industrial waste” (Postcard_CW3), and household waste disposal, especially related to burning plastic: “I wish people could stop burning their trash and dispose of their waste properly” (Postcard_C8). They reported smoke from industrial factories and people smoking as contributors to ambient air pollution. Indoor air pollution was mainly associated with the burning of domestic fuels, particularly charcoal for indoor cooking: “It will be good if we use alternatives to charcoal indoors” (Postcard_A5).

Posters with light paintings from Addis Ababa located at a bus stop outside the Addis Ababa Institute of Technology.

a Depicts the level of air pollution on Airport Road, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, recording PM 2.5 levels of 10–20 μg m-3; b Depicts the level of air pollution of biomass burning in a commercial kitchen at the University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, recording PM 2.5 levels of 150–200 μg m-3; c Depicts level of air pollution in an open area; d Depicts level of air pollution at a bus station in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; e Depicts level of air pollution during a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony; f Example of back of postcard with student’s statements.

In the context of advocating for change, students identified relevant stakeholders, suggesting they have the knowledge to engage with and bring about change, advocating for top-down measures to raise awareness to tackle air pollution: “The United Nations and other authorities should give awareness to people and make an effort to solve this global problem” (Postcard_A17); “The government should give awareness to the people about air pollution. Alternatives for charcoal should be used” (Postcard_A8). Similarly, they suggested the government intervention to tackle transport-related air pollution: “I wish the government of Ethiopia can reduce the toxic gas released by cars” (Postcard_C8); “The government should stop importing second-hand cars” (Postcard_CW1). Nonetheless, very few students identified mitigation mechanisms, suggesting a limited lack of knowledge of solutions. They focused particularly in addressing the need to plant more trees to tackle air pollution: “We should plant more plants in the cities to reduce air pollution” (Postcard_C5), but also to tackle deforestation for wood burning: “If we cut trees, we have to plant two-thirds of what we cut” (Postcard_A1). Moreover, they mentioned measures to reduce transport-related air pollution, especially in terms of incentivizing the use of more sustainable transport modes, including building more non-motorized transport infrastructure for walking and cycling, better car emissions regulation for imported cars, improvements in vehicles’ maintenance and fleet electrification: “Access to cheaper auto parts would decrease emissions, same with consistent electricity and CO 2 ” (Postcard_C16). Similarly, electrification and the incentivization for the use of more sustainable forms of power were suggested to reduce the use of charcoal for domestic use: “Promote and encourage people to use electricity for cooking” (Postcard_CW2).

Due to air pollution being ingrained in external factors (e.g., industry) and solutions requiring governmental influence, participants reported little individual opportunity to combat air pollution; nor were they able to express the physical or social opportunities they had to reduce pollution. Nonetheless, the students’ motivations and aspirations to reduce air pollution were high, although reported with broad comments: “I want to move around freely without getting polluted” (Postcard_A19); “We want to see a clean city, green and clean residential areas” (Postcard_A1). Overall, the postcards were a useful medium for initiating discussions around air pollution and indicated that there are still multiple barriers faced by individuals to improve air quality in Addis Ababa, despite their knowledge of the presence of air pollution and its impacts upon human and ecological health.

The Air of the Anthropocene project has experienced widespread recognition across multiple stakeholders, including publications in the New Scientist 38 , The Guardian 39 , Quest 40 , Source Magazine 41 , and gallery shows in Los Angeles, Belfast, and Birmingham. The project has also been utilized to raise air pollution awareness by UN International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) and UN-Habitat. For example, UN-Habitat commissioned four pollution light painting posters, see Fig.  6 for one of the commissioned light painting posters. The posters incorporated a light painting with accompanying text. The four light paintings all contained different messages that provided both information about air pollution and steps to reduce exposure to the air pollution. The use of the light painting provided the initial interest to create the place of discussion, where the additional messaging could be introduced. The four light paintings were displayed during the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) “Placemaking awareness raising event” (Kampala, Uganda 17th–19th January 2018).

Example awareness raising light painting poster used for the UN Habitat—Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) “Kampala Placemaking Campaign”. The image was photographed and contextualized, then printed and displayed on site in Luwum Street, the location of the placemaking campaign.

The work of Ostrom on common pool resources highlights that environmental management is more likely to be successful when four conditions hold 16 , 42 : (1) the environmental problem is visible, (2) the cause and effect relationships are understood, (3) the problem is reversible, and (4) management of the environmental resource (the air in this case) results in clear benefits to key constituencies. The Air of the Anthropocene project aimed at making invisible air pollution visible and to provide an easy-to-comprehend artistic engagement tool to compare air pollution in different contexts. By doing so, it fulfils the first of Ostrom’s conditions by making something that was largely invisible visible. It allows for the causes and effects of air pollution to be more readily understood and helps to achieve the second condition. By providing a visual understanding of air pollution that is accessible to a wide array of stakeholders, who do not necessarily have a scientific background, the light painting approach can help to demonstrate that the third and fourth criteria can hold for air pollution.

Due to its photographic art science connotation, the Air of the Anthropocene differs from more recent air quality community engagement projects 43 , 44 , creating spaces and places for discussion about air pollution, and thereby raising awareness, in an innovative manner. The project uses art, in this case, photography, as a proxy to communicate and create dialogs about the issues associated with air pollution. The visual depiction of PM and the associated storytelling highlighting the causes, contexts, and levels of air pollution, can make the issues of air pollution more tangible and understandable by the community. The use of photography, thanks to the power of images, has also the function of evoking people’s emotions and stimulating reflections upon the contextual environmental conditions. Moreover, as Addis Ababa’s example shows, this approach can foster awareness, space and places for dialogs, agency and community action, allowing different stakeholders to share their perspectives, solutions and take actions to tackle air pollution.

Measuring and understanding the impacts of art science collaboration in the context of climate change and environmental-related projects is challenging, due to the intrinsic long-term time scale associated with behavioral change 22 . Nonetheless, the approach presented in this paper can enhance individual and communities experience, emotions and reflections upon the relationships between spaces and environmental issues. The paper highlights the need for a holistic approach to understanding perceptions of air pollution, efforts to monitor pollution, efforts to communicate findings and ultimately efforts to affect change through interventions. It demonstrated that artistic interventions in scientific practice can create informative discussions, activate public engagement, and can become part of the air quality management toolkit. To quote John Butler “Art changes people and people change the world”.

In the future, this collaboration between art and science strives to develop open-sourced techniques that will generate new tools to effectively engage and empower communities to measure air quality and create air pollution narratives. For example, expanding the digital representation technique beyond lens-based techniques into augmented reality camera use is a possible further air pollution visualization technique. The adoption of open-source methodologies and the creation of open-source documentation would also allow the impact of the project to be sustained beyond the timescale and budget constraints of the individual projects. The development of new devices and techniques for visualizing air pollution data through different artistic tools will enable interested members of the public to create their own artistic aesthetic representations of their environment. The showcasing of these images can become a powerful advocacy tool to promote collective action, motivating community members to get involved in activist work and instigating transformational change in their localities.

Light painting equipment

An Alphasense OPC-N2 optical particle counter was used to conduct the PM measurements 45 . It was polled at one-second intervals by a Raspberry Pi 0 W which translated that real-time signal data into instructions for a LED array driven at high frequency by an Arduino-compatible microcontroller. The sensor, microcontrollers and LEDs were all powered by a single USB mobile battery charger pack and designed to be worn on the artist’s wrist. The fading in and out of the LEDs was controlled by a handheld trigger button. The LED array comprised a long thin strip of LEDs attached by Velcro to an adapted retractable boom pole intended for film and TV work. The number display of the PM reading and working controls were initially handled by an e-ink display/button unit though this was later adapted for wireless display/control by Wi-Fi connected smartphone. The design was intended to be both accurate scientifically whilst highly portable for ease of travel.

Light painting methodology

A camera (Nikon D5200) and tripod would be set up at a relevant photo location decided in collaboration with environmental scientists or other relevant stakeholders. The purpose of a location was to help tell the story of the causes, effects, differences in and possible ameliorations of particulate air pollution. After framing up the image the artist would wait until light levels allowed for a long exposure photograph to be taken without oversaturation of the camera. This would either take place during a seven-minute period at dawn or dusk or in an appropriately street lit area at night. Setting the camera for exposure priority was first given to the length of exposure (10 s–30 s), then aperture was set to give appropriate depth of field with visual subjects wholly in focus then finally setting ISO as low as possible within this. Once the equipment was in place and ready a series of photographs would be taken with the artist slowly walking with the sensor and LED array in front of the camera, calling out to an assistant when to release the shutter. After shutter release, the artist would hand trigger a fade-in using the trigger button and count out loud the passing seconds to ensure a fade-out was triggered before the camera’s shutter closing. This process would be repeated until the artist was satisfied a suitably aesthetic photograph had been taken or the light had changed sufficiently to halt the process. During and after the photography a number of readings from the equipment were noted to give a range description of the PM at that brief point in time, along with the location functioned as the photograph’s title. Minimal post-processing in Lightroom was used to ensure balanced color and exposure. Any unwanted stray light traces from the LED present on the pi zero would be removed with the heal tool.

Postcard technique for real-time data collection and analysis

Sentiments regarding air pollution from students of the Addis Ababa Institute of Technology were captured using a postcard data collection approach 46 . Postcards were filled out in English or Aramaic. Students’ responses were extracted and translated from Aramaic to English. Deductive thematic analysis 47 was undertaken on these responses, using the COM-B behavior change wheel framework 37 to understand individuals’ ‘capability’, ‘opportunity’ and ‘motivation’ of being able to change their behavior to reduce air pollution. Data management and coding was undertaken in NVivo, with the responses being assigned initial codes, and then categorized into the final themes. A robustness check and discussion confirmed the interpretation.

Reporting summary

Further information on research design is available in the  Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary linked to this article.

Data availability

Data are provided in the format of photographs (see figures), as this project is an art science collaboration study. Given the contextual conditions related to the lighting required for the use of the light painting technique, data from this study are not reproducible.

Code availability

Code for the light painting photo technique is contained in an open GitHub repository at https://github.com/robin-price/pollution-painter .

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Acknowledgements

The work was funded by the following grants NERC (NE/T001968/1), EPSRC (EP/T030100/1), and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) via the East Africa Research Fund (EARF) grant ‘A Systems Approach to Air Pollution (ASAP) East Africa’.

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These authors contributed equally: Francis D. Pope, Robin Price.

Authors and Affiliations

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Science, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

Francis D. Pope, Carlo Luiu, Ajit Singh & Faye Wilder

Vault Artist Studios, Belfast, UK

Robin Price

Institute of Applied Health Research, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

Katherine E. Woolley, Suzanne E. Bartington, Sheila M. Greenfield, Ajit Singh & G. Neil Thomas

School of Biosciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

Mohammed S. Alam

International Development Department, School of Government, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

William R. Avis

School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Addis Ababa Institute of Technology, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Dawit Debebe, Zerihun Getaneh & Bikila Teklu Wodajo

National Union of Journalists (NUJ) Training Wales, Swansea, UK

Rachel Howells

Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India

Mukesh Khare

Ethiopian Public Health Institute, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abel Weldetinsae

Birmingham Open Media (BOM), Birmingham, UK

Chloe Lawson, Ben Neal & Karen Newman

CSIR-National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi, India

Sumit K. Mishra

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Contributions

F.D.P. and R.P. conceived and design the experiment, performed the experiment, analyzed the data, contributed to materials and analysis tools, wrote the paper; K.E.W. and C.L. analyzed the data, contributed to materials and analysis tools and wrote the paper; M.S.A., W.R.A., S.E.B., D.D., Z.G., S.M.G., R.H., M.K., A.K., Ch.L., S.K.M., B.N., K.N., A.S., B.T.W., G.N.T., F.W. contributed to materials and analysis tools and reviewed and edited the paper.

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Correspondence to Francis D. Pope .

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Pope, F.D., Price, R., Woolley, K.E. et al. Light painting photography makes particulate matter air pollution visible. Commun Earth Environ 5 , 294 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01409-4

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• Environmental Pollution Essay

Essay on Environmental Pollution

The environment is the surrounding of an organism. The environment in which an organism lives is made up of various components like air, water, land, etc. These components are found in fixed proportions to create a harmonious balance in the environment for the organism to live in. Any kind of undesirable and unwanted change in the proportions of these components can be termed as pollution. This issue is increasing with every passing year. It is an issue that creates economic, physical, and social troubles. The environmental problem that is worsening with each day needs to be addressed so that its harmful effects on humans as well as the planet can be discarded.

Causes of Environmental Pollution 

With the rise of the industries and the migration of people from villages to cities in search of employment, there has been a regular increase in the problem of proper housing and unhygienic living conditions. These reasons have given rise to factors that cause pollution. 

Environmental pollution is of five basic types namely, Air, Water, Soil, and Noise pollution. 

Air Pollution: Air pollution is a major issue in today’s world. The smoke pouring out of factory chimneys and automobiles pollute the air that we breathe in. Gases like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and sulphur dioxide are emitted with this smoke which mixes with air and causes great harm to the human body, flora, and fauna. The dry-farm waste, dry grass, leaves, and coal used as domestic fuels in our villages also produce harmful gases. Acid rain occurs due to an excess of sulphur dioxide in the air.

The Main Sources of Air Pollution are as Follows:  

Automobile pollution 

Industrial air pollution 

Burning garbage 

Brick kilns 

Indoor air pollution 

Decomposed animals and plants 

Radioactive elements

Water Pollution: Water pollution is one of the most serious environmental issues. The waste products from the growing industries and sewage water are not treated properly before disposing of the wastewater into the rivers and other water bodies, thus leading to water pollution. Agricultural processes with excess fertilizers and pesticides also pollute the water bodies. 

The Main Sources of Water Pollution as Follows:  

Marine commerce. 

Industrial effluents joining seas and oceans. 

Dumping of radioactive substances into seawater. 

Sewage is disposed of into the sea by rivers. 

Offshore oil rigs. 

Recreational activities. 

Agricultural pollutants are disposed of into the water bodies.

Soil or Land Pollution: Soil pollution or land pollution results from the deposition of solid waste, accumulation of biodegradable material, deposition of chemicals with poisonous chemical compositions, etc on the open land. Waste materials such as plastics, polythene, and bottles, cause land pollution and render the soil infertile. Moreover, the dumping of dead bodies of animals adds to this issue. Soil pollution causes several diseases in man and animals like Cholera, Dysentery, Typhoid, etc.

The Main Causes of Soil Pollution are as Follows:  

Industrial waste 

Urban commercial and domestic waste 

Chemical fertilizers 

Biomedical waste 

Noise Pollution: With an increasing population, urbanization, and industrialization, noise pollution is becoming a serious form of pollution affecting human life, health, and comfort in daily life. Horns of vehicles, loudspeakers, music systems, and industrial activities contribute to noise pollution. 

The Main Sources of Noise Pollution as Follows:  

The machines in the factories and industries produce whistling sounds, crushing noise, and thundering sounds. 

Loudspeakers, horns of vehicles. 

Blasting of rocks and earth, drilling tube wells, ventilation fans, and heavy earth-moving machinery at construction sites.

How Pollution Harms Health and Environment

The lives of people and other creatures are affected by environmental pollution, both directly and indirectly. For centuries, these living organisms have coexisted with humans on the planet. 

1. Effect on the Environment

Smog is formed when carbon and dust particles bind together in the air, causing respiratory problems, haze, and smoke. These are created by the combustion of fossil fuels in industrial and manufacturing facilities and vehicle combustion of carbon fumes. 

Furthermore, these factors impact the immune systems of birds, making them carriers of viruses and diseases. It also has an impact on the body's system and organs. 

2.  Land, Soil, and Food Effects 

The degradation of human organic and chemical waste harms the land and soil. It also releases chemicals into the land and water. Pesticides, fertilisers, soil erosion, and crop residues are the main causes of land and soil pollution. 

3. Effects on water 

Water is easily contaminated by any pollutant, whether it be human waste or factory chemical discharge. We also use this water for crop irrigation and drinking. They, too, get polluted as a result of infection. Furthermore, an animal dies as a result of drinking the same tainted water. 

Furthermore, approximately 80% of land-based pollutants such as chemical, industrial, and agricultural waste wind up in water bodies. 

Furthermore, because these water basins eventually link to the sea, they contaminate the sea's biodiversity indirectly. 

4. Food Reaction

Crops and agricultural produce become poisonous as a result of contaminated soil and water. These crops are laced with chemical components from the start of their lives until harvest when they reach a mass level. Due to this, tainted food has an impact on our health and organs. 

5. Climate Change Impact 

Climate change is also a source of pollution in the environment. It also has an impact on the ecosystem's physical and biological components. 

Ozone depletion, greenhouse gas emissions, and global warming are all examples of environmental pollution. Because these water basins eventually link to the sea, they contaminate the sea's biodiversity indirectly. Furthermore, their consequences may be fatal for future generations. The unpredictably cold and hot climate impacts the earth’s natural system. 

Furthermore, earthquakes, starvation, smog, carbon particles, shallow rain or snow, thunderstorms, volcanic eruptions, and avalanches are all caused by climate change, caused entirely by environmental pollution.

How to Minimise Environmental Pollution? 

To minimise this issue, some preventive measures need to be taken. 

Principle of 3R’s: To save the environment, use the principle of 3 R’s; Reuse, Reduce and Recycle. 

Reuse products again and again. Instead of throwing away things after one use, find a way to use them again.  Reduce the generation of waste products.  

Recycle: Paper, plastics, glass, and electronic items can be processed into new products while using fewer natural resources and lesser energy. 

To prevent and control air pollution, better-designed equipment, and smokeless fuels should be used in homes and industries. More and more trees should be planted to balance the ecosystem and control greenhouse effects. 

Noise pollution can be minimised by better design and proper maintenance of vehicles. Industrial noise can be reduced by soundproofing equipment like generators, etc.  

To control soil pollution, we must stop the usage of plastic. Sewage should be treated properly before using it as fertilizers and as landfills. Encourage organic farming as this process involves the use of biological materials and avoiding synthetic substances to maintain soil fertility and ecological balance. 

Several measures can be adopted to control water pollution. Some of them are water consumption and usage that can be minimized by altering the techniques involved. Water should be reused with treatment. 

The melting icebergs in Antarctica resulted in rising sea levels due to the world's environmental pollution, which had become a serious problem due to global warming, which had become a significant concern. Rising carbon pollution poses a risk for causing natural disasters such as earthquakes, cyclones, and other natural disasters. 

The Hiroshima-Nagasaki and Chernobyl disasters in Russia have irreversibly harmed humanity. Different countries around the world are responding to these calamities in the most effective way possible. 

Different countries around the world are responding to these calamities in the most effective way possible. More public awareness campaigns are being established to educate people about the hazards of pollution and the importance of protecting our environment. Greener lifestyles are becoming more popular; for example, energy-efficient lighting, new climate-friendly autos, and the usage of wind and solar power are just a few examples. 

Governments emphasise the need to plant more trees, minimise the use of plastics, improve natural waste recovery, and reduce pesticide use. This ecological way of living has helped humanity save other creatures from extinction while making the Earth a greener and safer ecology. 

 Conclusion

It is the responsibility of every individual to save our planet from these environmental contamination agents. If preventive measures are not taken then our future generation will have to face major repercussions. The government is also taking steps to create public awareness. Every individual should be involved in helping to reduce and control pollution.

FAQs on Environmental Pollution Essay

1. What do you understand by ‘Environmental Pollution’?  

Environmental pollution is the contamination of the environment and surroundings like air, water, soil by the discharge of harmful substances.

2. What preventive measures should be taken to save our environment?

Some of the preventive measures that should be taken to save our environment are discussed below. 

We can save our environment by adopting the concept of carpooling and promoting public transport to save fuel. Smoking bars are public policies, including criminal laws and occupational safety and health regulations that prohibit tobacco smoking in workplaces and other public places.  

The use of Fossil fuels should be restricted because it causes major environmental issues like global warming.  

Encourage organic farming to maintain the fertility of the soil.

3.  What are the main sources of soil pollution?

The main sources of soil pollution as follows:

Industrial waste

Urban commercial and domestic waste

Chemical fertilizers

Biomedical waste

4. What is organic farming?

 It is a farming method that involves growing and nurturing crops without the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

13 Serious Effects of Cigarette Smoking on Environment and Human Health

Cigarette smoking causes  environmental pollution  by releasing  toxic air pollutants  into the atmosphere. The cigarette butts also litter the environment, and the toxic chemicals in the residues seep into soils and waterways, causing soil and  water pollution , respectively. 

Animals and plants  that come into contact with or absorb the toxic substances from cigarette residues are also affected.

As such, it’s not only the cigarette smoke that causes manifold impacts on people and the environment but also the cigarette butt and other wastes released during the entire production process of cigarettes.

Interestingly, when people hear about cigarette smoking, they often think of the health risks it has on the human body. Many fail to look at the critical side topic, which pertains to how it  harms the environment . 

In this article, we will be doing a comprehensive coverage of the serious impact of cigarette smoking on human health and the environment .

Devastating  Effects of Cigarette Smoking on Environment and Human Health

Cigarrette smoking is one of the most harmful habits, not only to humans but also to the environment they live in.

Let’s explore some of the effects of cigarettes:

1. Direct Risks to Human Health

Surveys and clinical studies prove that smoking cigarettes cause several health risks for humans. The following are the health risks associated with regular smoking.

Smoking is one of the leading causes of lung cancer deaths in the world. In fact, a recent article published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that smoking can be attributed to about 80% to 90% of lung cancer deaths , a truly stupefying statistic!

The smoke contains carcinogenic particles that increase smokers’ risk of developing cancers of the lungs, esophagus, throat, and larynx. Smoking is also associated with cancers of the bladder, pancreas, lips, kidney, uterus and cervix.

Autoimmune Disorder

Smoking suppresses the body’s immune system because cigarette contains nicotine , a renowned immunosuppressor that works by decreasing the activity level of neutrophils, a type of white blood cells that help the body fight infections and injuries.

Hence, it’s safe to argue that smoking increases the body’s vulnerability to infections and diseases, and not just respiratory-related illnesses as widely perceived.

In fact, smoking even causes numerous autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease . It equally plays a role in the periodic flare-ups of autoimmune diseases.

Type 2 Diabetes

The most recent clinical research reveals the existence of a link between type 2 diabetes and smoking. The study indicates that smokers are 30% to 40% more likely to suffer from type 2 diabetes compared to nonsmokers.

Premature Deaths

Smoking leads to premature death because of the associated health risks, including respiratory cancer and vascular diseases. Smokers’ lives are shortened by about 13 years compared to those who’ve never smoked.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 5 million deaths each year.

Lung Disease

Apart from lung cancer, smoking can also contribute to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, and chronic bronchitis. All these are dangerous conditions that may lead to death.

Heart Attack and Stroke

Smoking narrows blood vessels, restricting blood circulation to the heart, brain and other critical organs. It also increases the likelihood of blood clotting in the legs and lungs. Altogether, there is a heightened possibility of smokers becoming vulnerable to heart attack and stroke.

Complications for Pregnant Women

Pregnant women smokers or those exposed to second-hand smoke are at higher risk of developing complications during birth. They may also experience a wide range of congenital disorders.

Health dangers of second-hand smoke

Even if you are not a smoker, you are not spared if you are exposed to second-hand smoke, as it contains toxic metals, carcinogens and poisonous gases. Those exposed to second-hand smoke are at high risk of suffering from most of the diseases and health complications associated with first-hand smoking.

2. Deforestation

The key ingredient in the manufacture of cigarettes is tobacco, and the reality is that most of it is planted in rainforest areas. Accordingly, it has contributed to major deforestation in the areas where it is planted.

Tobacco cultivation, once confined to small plots of land, has now significantly expanded to encompass much larger fields. Some of these expanded cultivation areas were once densely forested regions.

A prime example is Tabora village in Usenge, Tanzania, where local tobacco farmers attest to this phenomenon.  

Deforestation  also has additional ripple  effects on the environment , such as reducing the availability of plants for foraging,  loss of biodiversity ,  soil erosion , and increasing global temperatures.

A publication even indicated that in an hour, a cigarette manufacturing unit needs about 4 miles of paper for rolling and packing, which translates to destroying one tree for every 300 cigarettes made.

The report further shows that a whopping 600 million trees are felled each year to facilitate the production of tobacco-related products , which is a massively alarming number considering the increasing concerns of global warming and climate change.

Even more, many producing countries must burn lots of wood to create fire for drying the tobacco leaves.

3. Generation of Huge Amounts of Toxic Waste

The entire process of cultivating, curing, and transporting tobacco brings a large amount of chemical and other toxic materials into the equation . At the same time, the production process generates huge amounts of waste, such as harmful chemical pesticides and fertilizers .

One of the habitually used substances in the production process is known as Aldicarb. It’s highly toxic to humans, plants and animals and can seep into waterways and  intoxicate the soil  for several years.

Other toxic wastes from cigarette production include dithane DF, imidacloprid, 1, 3 — dichloropropene, chlorpyrifos and methyl bromide, which can harm plants, humans and animals.

In as early as 1995, it was reported that nearly 2.3 billion kilograms of manufacturing waste are generated from the cigarette manufacturing process annually, including an additional 209 kilograms of chemical waste.

4. Air Pollution Through Industrial Production Process and Farming

The industrial processing and smoking of cigarettes add huge volumes of air pollutants into the atmosphere. Second-hand smoke pollutes the air directly, and the manufacturing process releases  air pollutants  in many ways.

The pollution starts right in the tobacco farms where the machines used emit  greenhouse gases  from the fossil fuel combusted to produce energy.

Wood-burning fires or special furnaces are also required in the curing process, releasing noxious chemicals into the atmosphere. Transportation and shipping for industrial processing and consumer markets worldwide further increase the environmental footprint of  greenhouse gas emissions .

5. Soil and Land Pollution Through Farming and From Cigarette Butts

The high scores of pesticides, fertilizers, and other chemicals used in tobacco cultivation introduce volumes of hazardous pollutants to the land and soils. These chemicals accumulate and eventually hamper the fertility of the soils and make the lands unsuitable for supporting any other crop.

Most of the ingredients present in cigarette butts, on the other hand, are non-biodegradable and take years to break down.

The filters are made of cellulose acetate, sourced from plastic, and are photodegradable, meaning they can be broken down by UV light but still take an extended period to break down.

The ingredients in the filter, therefore, remain in the soil for a long period, up to 10 years, as estimated by researchers. As long as they are present in the soil, the soil remains polluted .

6. Air Pollution Through Smoking

Carbon dioxide, methane and other noxious chemicals are present in second-hand smoke, which  causes air pollution  through smoking. Although methane and carbon dioxide are not deadly to smokers, the gases add to the general atmospheric pollution.

Smoking globally emits nearly 2.6 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide and 5.2 billion kilograms of methane into the atmosphere each year. This provides a clear picture of how smoking alone contributes to climate change. Second-hand smoke, as discussed earlier, also poses indirect health risks such as cancer to other people and animals.

7. Cigarette Butts and the Contamination of Waterways

Cigarette butts are increasingly becoming one of the biggest concerns with regard to littering. It is common to find cigarette butts scattered all over on the ground, and they often find a way into waterways when washed by stormwater or when they end up along shorelines or on wetlands.

Ocean Conservancy points out that cigarette butts are the most common waste matter, and a huge number ends up in international water systems, namely oceans. In 2008, for example, the International Coastal Cleanup program managed to clear about 3.2 million cigarette butts from waterways and beaches.

This was almost twice the amount of all other trash. Upon contaminating the waterways, they seriously harm aquatic animals and plants and even  pollute groundwater .

Another laboratory study found that cigarette butts can be a point source for heavy metal contamination in water, which may harm local organisms.

8. Impact on Aquatic Fish

Fish have particularly been impacted by cigarettes in countless ways. Whenever cigarette filters find a way into water systems, they can be ingested by fish because they resemble fish food like insects. The filters remain within the fish, reducing their stomach capacity and thus affecting their eating habits.

Research in the US also found that the runoff from just a single cigarette butt can kill a fish in a 1-liter jar of water. If this is translated into the amounts of cigarette butts that find their way into water systems, it’s more than clear the degree to which fish are impacted every year.

Humans are likewise not spared if, by any chance, they ingest the chemicals by consuming affected fish.

9. Health Impacts on Pets

When pets are outdoors, they do so many things, like sniffing through garbage and the streets. This puts the pets, dogs and cats at a high risk of ingesting cigarette butts lying on the ground as litter . The consequence can be damaging and may even kill the pet.

Second-hand smoke may also make pets susceptible to asthma or other lung complications. They are equally not spared of developing cancer, just like their human counterparts.

10. Effects on Livestock

Cigarette litter has a large effect on livestock and farms all over the world. Cigarette butts and packaging contain chemicals and toxins that can be extremely dangerous to any living organism that consumes them. When livestock eat this litter, they are exposed to these chemicals, which can cause sickness or death.

Livestock is also affected by cigarette litter on the soil. It works like a domino effect. The litter seeps chemicals into the soil, which poisons grass and other vegetation growing in that area.

Animals then eat the chemical-filled plants and can fall ill. It is particularly dangerous for grazing animals, which feed on a large amount of vegetation from many different areas.

11. Littering Environment

Since the 1980s, cigarette butts have consistently comprised 30 to 40 percent of all items collected in annual international coastal and urban cleanups.

Cigarettes and cigarette butts comprise nearly 38 percent of all collected litter other than cigarette filters, cigarette lighters, cigar tips and tobacco packages or wrappers, making them the most prominently littered item on U.S.roadways, beaches, retail areas, storm drains, loading docks, construction sites and recreational areas. Studies estimate that smokers litter as many as 65 percent of their cigarette butts.

Cigarette filters are made from cellulose acetate, a plastic which, though technically biodegradable, only degrades under severe biological circumstances, such as when filters collect in sewage.

In practice, cigarette butts tossed on streets and beaches do not biodegrade. The sun may break cigarette butts down, but only into smaller pieces of waste that dilute into water and/or soil. Even under optimal conditions, it can take at least nine months for a cigarette butt to degrade.

12. Cleanup Costs

Growing concerns over the impact of tobacco waste on the environment, as well as the substantial costs of cleanup, have prompted states, municipalities and institutions to enact various policy actions, and they have prohibited smoking on their beaches, in parks and many other places.

13. Forest Fires (Wildfires)

The  forest fires  started by burning cigarette butts worldwide are countless. About 17,000 people worldwide die each year because of fires started by cigarette lighters or discarded burning cigarettes. In terms of property damage, the losses are more than 27 billion US dollars every year.

Further, such  forest fires  damage the environment, causing  biodiversity loss ,  habitat loss ,  air pollution ,  deforestation  and the death of humans and wild animals.

A forest fire started by a cigarette butt in the year 1987 in China killed 300 people, left 5,000 others homeless and destroyed approximately 1.3 million hectares of land.

References:

Effects of Smoking

Effects of Smoking on Body

Health Risks of Smoking Tobacco

Vaping Daily

About Rinkesh

A true environmentalist by heart ❤️. Founded Conserve Energy Future with the sole motto of providing helpful information related to our rapidly depleting environment. Unless you strongly believe in Elon Musk‘s idea of making Mars as another habitable planet, do remember that there really is no 'Planet B' in this whole universe.

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Office on Smoking and Health (US). The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta (GA): Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US); 2006.

The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General.

1 introduction, summary, and conclusions.

• Introduction

The topic of passive or involuntary smoking was first addressed in the 1972 U.S. Surgeon General’s report ( The Health Consequences of Smoking , U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare [USDHEW] 1972 ), only eight years after the first Surgeon General’s report on the health consequences of active smoking ( USDHEW 1964 ). Surgeon General Dr. Jesse Steinfeld had raised concerns about this topic, leading to its inclusion in that report. According to the 1972 report, nonsmokers inhale the mixture of sidestream smoke given off by a smoldering cigarette and mainstream smoke exhaled by a smoker, a mixture now referred to as “secondhand smoke” or “environmental tobacco smoke.” Cited experimental studies showed that smoking in enclosed spaces could lead to high levels of cigarette smoke components in the air. For carbon monoxide ( CO ) specifically, levels in enclosed spaces could exceed levels then permitted in outdoor air. The studies supported a conclusion that “an atmosphere contaminated with tobacco smoke can contribute to the discomfort of many individuals” ( USDHEW 1972 , p. 7). The possibility that CO emitted from cigarettes could harm persons with chronic heart or lung disease was also mentioned.

Secondhand tobacco smoke was then addressed in greater depth in Chapter 4 (Involuntary Smoking) of the 1975 Surgeon General’s report, The Health Consequences of Smoking ( USDHEW 1975 ). The chapter noted that involuntary smoking takes place when nonsmokers inhale both sidestream and exhaled mainstream smoke and that this “smoking” is “involuntary” when “the exposure occurs as an unavoidable consequence of breathing in a smoke-filled environment” (p. 87). The report covered exposures and potential health consequences of involuntary smoking, and the researchers concluded that smoking on buses and airplanes was annoying to nonsmokers and that involuntary smoking had potentially adverse consequences for persons with heart and lung diseases. Two studies on nicotine concentrations in nonsmokers raised concerns about nicotine as a contributing factor to atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in nonsmokers.

The 1979 Surgeon General’s report, Smoking and Health: A Report of the Surgeon General ( USDHEW 1979 ), also contained a chapter entitled “Involuntary Smoking.” The chapter stressed that “attention to involuntary smoking is of recent vintage, and only limited information regarding the health effects of such exposure upon the nonsmoker is available” (p. 11–35). The chapter concluded with recommendations for research including epidemiologic and clinical studies. The 1982 Surgeon General’s report specifically addressed smoking and cancer ( U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [USDHHS] 1982 ). By 1982, there were three published epidemiologic studies on involuntary smoking and lung cancer, and the 1982 Surgeon General’s report included a brief chapter on this topic. That chapter commented on the methodologic difficulties inherent in such studies, including exposure assessment, the lengthy interval during which exposures are likely to be relevant, and accounting for exposures to other carcinogens. Nonetheless, the report concluded that “Although the currently available evidence is not sufficient to conclude that passive or involuntary smoking causes lung cancer in nonsmokers, the evidence does raise concern about a possible serious public health problem” (p. 251).

Involuntary smoking was also reviewed in the 1984 report, which focused on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and smoking ( USDHHS 1984 ). Chapter 7 (Passive Smoking) of that report included a comprehensive review of the mounting information on smoking by parents and the effects on respiratory health of their children, data on irritation of the eye, and the more limited evidence on pulmonary effects of involuntary smoking on adults. The chapter began with a compilation of measurements of tobacco smoke components in various indoor environments. The extent of the data had increased substantially since 1972. By 1984, the data included measurements of more specific indicators such as acrolein and nicotine, and less specific indicators such as particulate matter ( PM ), nitrogen oxides, and CO . The report reviewed new evidence on exposures of nonsmokers using bio-markers, with substantial information on levels of cotinine, a major nicotine metabolite. The report anticipated future conclusions with regard to respiratory effects of parental smoking on child respiratory health ( Table 1.1 ).

Conclusions from previous Surgeon General’s reports on the health effects of secondhand smoke exposure

Involuntary smoking was the topic for the entire 1986 Surgeon General’s report, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Smoking ( USDHHS 1986 ). In its 359 pages, the report covered the full breadth of the topic, addressing toxicology and dosimetry of tobacco smoke; the relevant evidence on active smoking; patterns of exposure of nonsmokers to tobacco smoke; the epidemiologic evidence on involuntary smoking and disease risks for infants, children, and adults; and policies to control involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke. That report concluded that involuntary smoking caused lung cancer in lifetime nonsmoking adults and was associated with adverse effects on respiratory health in children. The report also stated that simply separating smokers and nonsmokers within the same airspace reduced but did not eliminate exposure to secondhand smoke. All of these findings are relevant to public health and public policy ( Table 1.1 ). The lung cancer conclusion was based on extensive information already available on the carcinogenicity of active smoking, the qualitative similarities between secondhand and mainstream smoke, the uptake of tobacco smoke components by nonsmokers, and the epidemiologic data on involuntary smoking. The three major conclusions of the report ( Table 1.2 ), led Dr. C. Everett Koop, Surgeon General at the time, to comment in his preface that “the right of smokers to smoke ends where their behavior affects the health and well-being of others; furthermore, it is the smokers’ responsibility to ensure that they do not expose nonsmokers to the potential [ sic ] harmful effects of tobacco smoke” ( USDHHS 1986 , p. xii).

Major conclusions of the 1986 Surgeon General’s report, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Smoking

Two other reports published in 1986 also reached the conclusion that involuntary smoking increased the risk for lung cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer ( IARC ) of the World Health Organization concluded that “passive smoking gives rise to some risk of cancer” ( IARC 1986 , p. 314). In its monograph on tobacco smoking, the agency supported this conclusion on the basis of the characteristics of sidestream and mainstream smoke, the absorption of tobacco smoke materials during an involuntary exposure, and the nature of dose-response relationships for carcinogenesis. In the same year, the National Research Council ( NRC ) also concluded that involuntary smoking increases the incidence of lung cancer in nonsmokers ( NRC 1986 ). In reaching this conclusion, the NRC report cited the biologic plausibility of the association between exposure to secondhand smoke and lung cancer and the supporting epidemiologic evidence. On the basis of a pooled analysis of the epidemiologic data adjusted for bias, the report concluded that the best estimate for the excess risk of lung cancer in nonsmokers married to smokers was 25 percent, compared with nonsmokers married to nonsmokers. With regard to the effects of involuntary smoking on children, the NRC report commented on the literature linking secondhand smoke exposures from parental smoking to increased risks for respiratory symptoms and infections and to a slightly diminished rate of lung growth.

Since 1986, the conclusions with regard to both the carcinogenicity of secondhand smoke and the adverse effects of parental smoking on the health of children have been echoed and expanded ( Table 1.3 ). In 1992, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA ) published its risk assessment of secondhand smoke as a carcinogen ( USEPA 1992 ). The agency’s evaluation drew on toxicologic information on secondhand smoke and the extensive literature on active smoking. A comprehensive meta-analysis of the 31 epidemiologic studies of secondhand smoke and lung cancer published up to that time was central to the decision to classify secondhand smoke as a group A carcinogen—namely, a known human carcinogen. Estimates of approximately 3,000 U.S. lung cancer deaths per year in non-smokers were attributed to secondhand smoke. The report also covered other respiratory health effects in children and adults and concluded that involuntary smoking is causally associated with several adverse respiratory effects in children. There was also a quantitative risk assessment for the impact of involuntary smoking on childhood asthma and lower respiratory tract infections in young children.

Selected major reports, other than those of the U.S. Surgeon General, addressing adverse effects from exposure to tobacco smoke

In the decade since the 1992 EPA report, scientific panels continued to evaluate the mounting evidence linking involuntary smoking to adverse health effects ( Table 1.3 ). The most recent was the 2005 report of the California EPA ( Cal/EPA 2005 ). Over time, research has repeatedly affirmed the conclusions of the 1986 Surgeon General’s reports and studies have further identified causal associations of involuntary smoking with diseases and other health disorders. The epidemiologic evidence on involuntary smoking has markedly expanded since 1986, as have the data on exposure to tobacco smoke in the many environments where people spend time. An understanding of the mechanisms by which involuntary smoking causes disease has also deepened.

As part of the environmental health hazard assessment, Cal/EPA identified specific health effects causally associated with exposure to secondhand smoke. The agency estimated the annual excess deaths in the United States that are attributable to secondhand smoke exposure for specific disorders: sudden infant death syndrome ( SIDS ), cardiac-related illnesses (ischemic heart disease), and lung cancer ( Cal/EPA 2005 ). For the excess incidence of other health outcomes, either new estimates were provided or estimates from the 1997 health hazard assessment were used without any revisions ( Cal/EPA 1997 ). Overall, Cal/EPA estimated that about 50,000 excess deaths result annually from exposure to secondhand smoke ( Cal/EPA 2005 ). Estimated annual excess deaths for the total U.S. population are about 3,400 (a range of 3,423 to 8,866) from lung cancer, 46,000 (a range of 22,700 to 69,600) from cardiac-related illnesses, and 430 from SIDS. The agency also estimated that between 24,300 and 71,900 low birth weight or pre-term deliveries, about 202,300 episodes of childhood asthma (new cases and exacerbations), between 150,000 and 300,000 cases of lower respiratory illness in children, and about 789,700 cases of middle ear infections in children occur each year in the United States as a result of exposure to secondhand smoke.

This new 2006 Surgeon General’s report returns to the topic of involuntary smoking. The health effects of involuntary smoking have not received comprehensive coverage in this series of reports since 1986. Reports since then have touched on selected aspects of the topic: the 1994 report on tobacco use among young people ( USDHHS 1994 ), the 1998 report on tobacco use among U.S. racial and ethnic minorities ( USDHHS 1998 ), and the 2001 report on women and smoking ( USDHHS 2001 ). As involuntary smoking remains widespread in the United States and elsewhere, the preparation of this report was motivated by the persistence of involuntary smoking as a public health problem and the need to evaluate the substantial new evidence reported since 1986. This report substantially expands the list of topics that were included in the 1986 report. Additional topics include SIDS , developmental effects, and other reproductive effects; heart disease in adults; and cancer sites beyond the lung. For some associations of involuntary smoking with adverse health effects, only a few studies were reviewed in 1986 (e. g ., ear disease in children); now, the relevant literature is substantial. Consequently, this report uses meta-analysis to quantitatively summarize evidence as appropriate. Following the approach used in the 2004 report ( The Health Consequences of Smoking , USDHHS 2004 ), this 2006 report also systematically evaluates the evidence for causality, judging the extent of the evidence available and then making an inference as to the nature of the association.

Organization of the Report

This twenty-ninth report of the Surgeon General examines the topics of toxicology of secondhand smoke, assessment and prevalence of exposure to secondhand smoke, reproductive and developmental health effects, respiratory effects of exposure to secondhand smoke in children and adults, cancer among adults, cardiovascular diseases, and the control of secondhand smoke exposure.

This introductory chapter (Chapter 1) includes a discussion of the concept of causation and introduces concepts of causality that are used throughout this report; this chapter also summarizes the major conclusions of the report. Chapter 2 (Toxicology of Secondhand Smoke) sets out a foundation for interpreting the observational evidence that is the focus of most of the following chapters. The discussion details the mechanisms that enable tobacco smoke components to injure the respiratory tract and cause nonmalignant and malignant diseases and other adverse effects. Chapter 3 (Assessment of Exposure to Secondhand Smoke) provides a perspective on key factors that determine exposures of people to secondhand smoke in indoor environments, including building designs and operations, atmospheric markers of secondhand smoke, exposure models, and biomarkers of exposure to secondhand smoke. Chapter 4 (Prevalence of Exposure to Secondhand Smoke) summarizes findings that focus on nicotine measurements in the air and cotinine measurements in biologic materials. The chapter includes exposures in the home, workplace, public places, and special populations. Chapter 5 (Reproductive and Developmental Effects from Exposure to Secondhand Smoke) reviews the health effects on reproduction, on infants, and on child development. Chapter 6 (Respiratory Effects in Children from Exposure to Secondhand Smoke) examines the effects of parental smoking on the respiratory health of children. Chapter 7 (Cancer Among Adults from Exposure to Secondhand Smoke) summarizes the evidence on cancer of the lung, breast, nasal sinuses, and the cervix. Chapter 8 (Cardiovascular Diseases from Exposure to Secondhand Smoke) discusses coronary heart disease ( CHD ), stroke, and subclinical vascular disease. Chapter 9 (Respiratory Effects in Adults from Exposure to Secondhand Smoke) examines odor and irritation, respiratory symptoms, lung function, and respiratory diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Chapter 10 (Control of Secondhand Smoke Exposure) considers measures used to control exposure to secondhand smoke in public places, including legislation, education, and approaches based on building designs and operations. The report concludes with “A Vision for the Future.” Major conclusions of the report were distilled from the chapter conclusions and appear later in this chapter.

Preparation of the Report

This report of the Surgeon General was prepared by the Office on Smoking and Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Coordinating Center for Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ), and U.S. DHHS. Initial chapters were written by 22 experts who were selected because of their knowledge of a particular topic. The contributions of the initial experts were consolidated into 10 major chapters that were then reviewed by more than 40 peer reviewers. The entire manuscript was then sent to more than 30 scientists and experts who reviewed it for its scientific integrity. After each review cycle, the drafts were revised by the scientific editors on the basis of the experts’ comments. Subsequently, the report was reviewed by various institutes and agencies within U.S. DHHS. Publication lags, even short ones, prevent an up-to-the-minute inclusion of all recently published articles and data. Therefore, by the time the public reads this report, there may be additional published studies or data. To provide published information as current as possible, this report includes an Appendix of more recent studies that represent major additions to the literature.

This report is also accompanied by a companion database of key evidence that is accessible through the Internet ( http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco ). The database includes a uniform description of the studies and results on the health effects of exposure to secondhand smoke that were presented in a format compatible with abstraction into standardized tables. Readers of the report may access these data for additional analyses, tables, or figures.

• Definitions and Terminology

The inhalation of tobacco smoke by nonsmokers has been variably referred to as “passive smoking” or “involuntary smoking.” Smokers, of course, also inhale secondhand smoke. Cigarette smoke contains both particles and gases generated by the combustion at high temperatures of tobacco, paper, and additives. The smoke inhaled by nonsmokers that contaminates indoor spaces and outdoor environments has often been referred to as “secondhand smoke” or “environmental tobacco smoke.” This inhaled smoke is the mixture of sidestream smoke released by the smoldering cigarette and the mainstream smoke that is exhaled by a smoker. Sidestream smoke, generated at lower temperatures and under somewhat different combustion conditions than mainstream smoke, tends to have higher concentrations of many of the toxins found in cigarette smoke ( USDHHS 1986 ). However, it is rapidly diluted as it travels away from the burning cigarette.

Secondhand smoke is an inherently dynamic mixture that changes in characteristics and concentration with the time since it was formed and the distance it has traveled. The smoke particles change in size and composition as gaseous components are volatilized and moisture content changes; gaseous elements of secondhand smoke may be adsorbed onto materials, and particle concentrations drop with both dilution in the air or environment and impaction on surfaces, including the lungs or on the body. Because of its dynamic nature, a specific quantitative definition of secondhand smoke cannot be offered.

This report uses the term secondhand smoke in preference to environmental tobacco smoke, even though the latter may have been used more frequently in previous reports. The descriptor “secondhand” captures the involuntary nature of the exposure, while “environmental” does not. This report also refers to the inhalation of secondhand smoke as involuntary smoking, acknowledging that most nonsmokers do not want to inhale tobacco smoke. The exposure of the fetus to tobacco smoke, whether from active smoking by the mother or from her exposure to secondhand smoke, also constitutes involuntary smoking.

• Evidence Evaluation

Following the model of the 1964 report, the Surgeon General’s reports on smoking have included comprehensive compilations of the evidence on the health effects of smoking. The evidence is analyzed to identify causal associations between smoking and disease according to enunciated principles, sometimes referred to as the “Surgeon General’s criteria” or the “Hill” criteria (after Sir Austin Bradford Hill) for causality ( USDHEW 1964 ; USDHHS 2004 ). Application of these criteria involves covering all relevant observational and experimental evidence. The criteria, offered in a brief chapter of the 1964 report entitled “Criteria for Judgment,” included (1) the consistency of the association, (2) the strength of the association, (3) the specificity of the association, (4) the temporal relationship of the association, and (5) the coherence of the association. Although these criteria have been criticized (e. g ., Rothman and Greenland 1998 ), they have proved useful as a framework for interpreting evidence on smoking and other postulated causes of disease, and for judging whether causality can be inferred.

In the 2004 report of the Surgeon General, The Health Consequences of Smoking , the framework for interpreting evidence on smoking and health was revisited in depth for the first time since the 1964 report ( USDHHS 2004 ). The 2004 report provided a four-level hierarchy for interpreting evidence ( Table 1.4 ). The categories acknowledge that evidence can be “suggestive” but not adequate to infer a causal relationship, and also allows for evidence that is “suggestive of no causal relationship.” Since the 2004 report, the individual chapter conclusions have consistently used this four-level hierarchy ( Table 1.4 ), but evidence syntheses and other summary statements may use either the term “increased risk” or “cause” to describe instances in which there is sufficient evidence to conclude that active or involuntary smoking causes a disease or condition. This four-level framework also sharply and completely separates conclusions regarding causality from the implications of such conclusions.

Four-level hierarchy for classifying the strength of causal inferences based on available evidence

That same framework was used in this report on involuntary smoking and health. The criteria dating back to the 1964 Surgeon General’s report remain useful as guidelines for evaluating evidence ( USDHEW 1964 ), but they were not intended to be applied strictly or as a “checklist” that needed to be met before the designation of “causal” could be applied to an association. In fact, for involuntary smoking and health, several of the criteria will not be met for some associations. Specificity, referring to a unique exposure-disease relationship (e. g ., the association between thalidomide use during pregnancy and unusual birth defects), can be set aside as not relevant, as all of the health effects considered in this report have causes other than involuntary smoking. Associations are considered more likely to be causal as the strength of an association increases because competing explanations become less plausible alternatives. However, based on knowledge of dosimetry and mechanisms of injury and disease causation, the risk is anticipated to be only slightly or modestly increased for some associations of involuntary smoking with disease, such as lung cancer, particularly when the very strong relative risks found for active smokers are compared with those for lifetime nonsmokers. The finding of only a small elevation in risk, as in the example of spousal smoking and lung cancer risk in lifetime nonsmokers, does not weigh against a causal association; however, alternative explanations for a risk of a small magnitude need full exploration and cannot be so easily set aside as alternative explanations for a stronger association. Consistency, coherence, and the temporal relationship of involuntary smoking with disease are central to the interpretations in this report. To address coherence, the report draws not only on the evidence for involuntary smoking, but on the even more extensive literature on active smoking and disease.

Although the evidence reviewed in this report comes largely from investigations of secondhand smoke specifically, the larger body of evidence on active smoking is also relevant to many of the associations that were evaluated. The 1986 report found secondhand smoke to be qualitatively similar to mainstream smoke inhaled by the smoker and concluded that secondhand smoke would be expected to have “a toxic and carcinogenic potential that would not be expected to be qualitatively different from that of MS [mainstream smoke]” ( USDHHS 1986 , p. 23). The 2004 report of the Surgeon General revisited the health consequences of active smoking ( USDHHS 2004 ), and the conclusions substantially expanded the list of diseases and conditions caused by smoking. Chapters in the present report consider the evidence on active smoking that is relevant to biologic plausibility for causal associations between involuntary smoking and disease. The reviews included in this report cover evidence identified through search strategies set out in each chapter. Of necessity, the evidence on mechanisms was selectively reviewed. However, an attempt was made to cover all health studies through specified target dates. Because of the substantial amount of time involved in preparing this report, lists of new key references published after these cut-off dates are included in an Appendix . Literature reviews were extended when new evidence was sufficient to possibly change the level of a causal conclusion.

• Major Conclusions

This report returns to involuntary smoking, the topic of the 1986 Surgeon General’s report. Since then, there have been many advances in the research on secondhand smoke, and substantial evidence has been reported over the ensuing 20 years. This report uses the revised language for causal conclusions that was implemented in the 2004 Surgeon General’s report ( USDHHS 2004 ). Each chapter provides a comprehensive review of the evidence, a quantitative synthesis of the evidence if appropriate, and a rigorous assessment of sources of bias that may affect interpretations of the findings. The reviews in this report reaffirm and strengthen the findings of the 1986 report. With regard to the involuntary exposure of nonsmokers to tobacco smoke, the scientific evidence now supports the following major conclusions:

• Secondhand smoke causes premature death and disease in children and in adults who do not smoke.
• Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome ( SIDS ), acute respiratory infections, ear problems, and more severe asthma. Smoking by parents causes respiratory symptoms and slows lung growth in their children.
• Exposure of adults to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and causes coronary heart disease and lung cancer.
• The scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.
• Many millions of Americans, both children and adults, are still exposed to secondhand smoke in their homes and workplaces despite substantial progress in tobacco control.
• Eliminating smoking in indoor spaces fully protects nonsmokers from exposure to secondhand smoke. Separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air, and ventilating buildings cannot eliminate exposures of nonsmokers to secondhand smoke.
• Chapter Conclusions

Chapter 2 Toxicology of Secondhand Smoke

Evidence of carcinogenic effects from secondhand smoke exposure.

• 1. More than 50 carcinogens have been identified in sidestream and secondhand smoke.
• 2. The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between exposure to secondhand smoke and its condensates and tumors in laboratory animals.
• 3. The evidence is sufficient to infer that exposure of nonsmokers to secondhand smoke causes a significant increase in urinary levels of metabolites of the tobacco-specific lung carcinogen 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone ( NNK ). The presence of these metabolites links exposure to secondhand smoke with an increased risk for lung cancer.
• 4. The mechanisms by which secondhand smoke causes lung cancer are probably similar to those observed in smokers. The overall risk of secondhand smoke exposure, compared with active smoking, is diminished by a substantially lower carcinogenic dose.

Mechanisms of Respiratory Tract Injury and Disease Caused by Secondhand Smoke Exposure

• 5. The evidence indicates multiple mechanisms by which secondhand smoke exposure causes injury to the respiratory tract.
• 6. The evidence indicates mechanisms by which secondhand smoke exposure could increase the risk for sudden infant death syndrome.

Mechanisms of Secondhand Smoke Exposure and Heart Disease

• 7. The evidence is sufficient to infer that exposure to secondhand smoke has a prothrombotic effect.
• 8. The evidence is sufficient to infer that exposure to secondhand smoke causes endothelial cell dysfunctions.
• 9. The evidence is sufficient to infer that exposure to secondhand smoke causes atherosclerosis in animal models.

Chapter 3. Assessment of Exposure to Secondhand Smoke

Building designs and operations.

• 1. Current heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems alone cannot control exposure to secondhand smoke.
• 2. The operation of a heating, ventilating, and air conditioning system can distribute secondhand smoke throughout a building.

Exposure Models

• 3. Atmospheric concentration of nicotine is a sensitive and specific indicator for secondhand smoke.
• 4. Smoking increases indoor particle concentrations.
• 5. Models can be used to estimate concentrations of secondhand smoke.

Biomarkers of Exposure to Secondhand Smoke

• 6. Biomarkers suitable for assessing recent exposures to secondhand smoke are available.
• 7. At this time, cotinine, the primary proximate metabolite of nicotine, remains the biomarker of choice for assessing secondhand smoke exposure.
• 8. Individual biomarkers of exposure to secondhand smoke represent only one component of a complex mixture, and measurements of one marker may not wholly reflect an exposure to other components of concern as a result of involuntary smoking.

Chapter 4. Prevalence of Exposure to Secondhand Smoke

• The evidence is sufficient to infer that large numbers of nonsmokers are still exposed to secondhand smoke.
• Exposure of nonsmokers to secondhand smoke has declined in the United States since the 1986 Surgeon General’s report, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Smoking .
• The evidence indicates that the extent of secondhand smoke exposure varies across the country.
• Homes and workplaces are the predominant locations for exposure to secondhand smoke.
• Exposure to secondhand smoke tends to be greater for persons with lower incomes.
• Exposure to secondhand smoke continues in restaurants, bars, casinos, gaming halls, and vehicles.

Chapter 5. Reproductive and Developmental Effects from Exposure to Secondhand Smoke

• 1. The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between maternal exposure to secondhand smoke and female fertility or fecundability. No data were found on paternal exposure to secondhand smoke and male fertility or fecundability.

Pregnancy (Spontaneous Abortion and Perinatal Death)

• 2. The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between maternal exposure to secondhand smoke during pregnancy and spontaneous abortion.

Infant Deaths

• 3. The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between exposure to secondhand smoke and neonatal mortality.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

• 4. The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between exposure to secondhand smoke and sudden infant death syndrome.

Preterm Delivery

• 5. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between maternal exposure to secondhand smoke during pregnancy and preterm delivery.

Low Birth Weight

• 6. The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between maternal exposure to secondhand smoke during pregnancy and a small reduction in birth weight.

Congenital Malformations

• 7. The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between exposure to secondhand smoke and congenital malformations.

Cognitive Development

• 8. The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between exposure to secondhand smoke and cognitive functioning among children.

Behavioral Development

• 9. The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between exposure to secondhand smoke and behavioral problems among children.

Height/Growth

• 10. The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between exposure to secondhand smoke and children’s height/growth.

Childhood Cancer

• 11. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between prenatal and postnatal exposure to secondhand smoke and childhood cancer.
• 12. The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between maternal exposure to secondhand smoke during pregnancy and childhood cancer.
• 13. The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between exposure to secondhand smoke during infancy and childhood cancer.
• 14. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between prenatal and postnatal exposure to secondhand smoke and childhood leukemias.
• 15. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between prenatal and postnatal exposure to secondhand smoke and childhood lymphomas.
• 16. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between prenatal and postnatal exposure to secondhand smoke and childhood brain tumors.
• 17. The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between prenatal and postnatal exposure to secondhand smoke and other childhood cancer types.

Chapter 6. Respiratory Effects in Children from Exposure to Secondhand Smoke

Lower respiratory illnesses in infancy and early childhood.

• 1. The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure from parental smoking and lower respiratory illnesses in infants and children.
• 2. The increased risk for lower respiratory illnesses is greatest from smoking by the mother.

Middle Ear Disease and Adenotonsillectomy

• 3. The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between parental smoking and middle ear disease in children, including acute and recurrent otitis media and chronic middle ear effusion.
• 4. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between parental smoking and the natural history of middle ear effusion.
• 5. The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between parental smoking and an increase in the risk of adenoidectomy or tonsillectomy among children.

Respiratory Symptoms and Prevalent Asthma in School-Age Children

• 6. The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between parental smoking and cough, phlegm, wheeze, and breathlessness among children of school age.
• 7. The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between parental smoking and ever having asthma among children of school age.

Childhood Asthma Onset

• 8. The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure from parental smoking and the onset of wheeze illnesses in early childhood.
• 9. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure from parental smoking and the onset of childhood asthma.
• 10. The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between parental smoking and the risk of immunoglobulin E-mediated allergy in their children.

Lung Growth and Pulmonary Function

• 11. The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between maternal smoking during pregnancy and persistent adverse effects on lung function across childhood.
• 12. The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between exposure to secondhand smoke after birth and a lower level of lung function during childhood.

Chapter 7. Cancer Among Adults from Exposure to Secondhand Smoke

Lung cancer.

• 1. The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and lung cancer among lifetime nonsmokers. This conclusion extends to all secondhand smoke exposure, regardless of location.
• 2. The pooled evidence indicates a 20 to 30 percent increase in the risk of lung cancer from secondhand smoke exposure associated with living with a smoker.

Breast Cancer

• 3. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between secondhand smoke and breast cancer.

Nasal Sinus Cavity and Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

• 4. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and a risk of nasal sinus cancer among nonsmokers.
• 5. The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and a risk of nasopharyngeal carcinoma among nonsmokers.

Cervical Cancer

• 6. The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and the risk of cervical cancer among lifetime nonsmokers.

Chapter 8. Cardiovascular Diseases from Exposure to Secondhand Smoke

• The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between exposure to secondhand smoke and increased risks of coronary heart disease morbidity and mortality among both men and women.
• Pooled relative risks from meta-analyses indicate a 25 to 30 percent increase in the risk of coronary heart disease from exposure to secondhand smoke.
• The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between exposure to secondhand smoke and an increased risk of stroke.
• Studies of secondhand smoke and subclinical vascular disease, particularly carotid arterial wall thickening, are suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between exposure to secondhand smoke and atherosclerosis.

Chapter 9. Respiratory Effects in Adults from Exposure to Secondhand Smoke

Odor and irritation.

• 1. The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and odor annoyance.
• 2. The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and nasal irritation.
• 3. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to conclude that persons with nasal allergies or a history of respiratory illnesses are more susceptible to developing nasal irritation from secondhand smoke exposure.

Respiratory Symptoms

• 4. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and acute respiratory symptoms including cough, wheeze, chest tightness, and difficulty breathing among persons with asthma.
• 5. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and acute respiratory symptoms including cough, wheeze, chest tightness, and difficulty breathing among healthy persons.
• 6. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and chronic respiratory symptoms.

Lung Function

• 7. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between short-term secondhand smoke exposure and an acute decline in lung function in persons with asthma.
• 8. The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between short-term secondhand smoke exposure and an acute decline in lung function in healthy persons.
• 9. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between chronic secondhand smoke exposure and a small decrement in lung function in the general population.
• 10. The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between chronic secondhand smoke exposure and an accelerated decline in lung function.
• 11. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and adult-onset asthma.
• 12. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and a worsening of asthma control.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

• 13. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and risk for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
• 14. The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and morbidity in persons with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Chapter 10. Control of Secondhand Smoke Exposure

• Workplace smoking restrictions are effective in reducing secondhand smoke exposure.
• Workplace smoking restrictions lead to less smoking among covered workers.
• Establishing smoke-free workplaces is the only effective way to ensure that secondhand smoke exposure does not occur in the workplace.
• The majority of workers in the United States are now covered by smoke-free policies.
• The extent to which workplaces are covered by smoke-free policies varies among worker groups, across states, and by sociodemographic factors. Workplaces related to the entertainment and hospitality industries have notably high potential for secondhand smoke exposure.
• Evidence from peer-reviewed studies shows that smoke-free policies and regulations do not have an adverse economic impact on the hospitality industry.
• Evidence suggests that exposure to secondhand smoke varies by ethnicity and gender.
• In the United States, the home is now becoming the predominant location for exposure of children and adults to secondhand smoke.
• Total bans on indoor smoking in hospitals, restaurants, bars, and offices substantially reduce secondhand smoke exposure, up to several orders of magnitude with incomplete compliance, and with full compliance, exposures are eliminated.
• Exposures of nonsmokers to secondhand smoke cannot be controlled by air cleaning or mechanical air exchange.
• Methodologic Issues

Much of the evidence on the health effects of involuntary smoking comes from observational epidemiologic studies that were carried out to test hypotheses related to secondhand smoke and risk for diseases and other adverse health effects. The challenges faced in carrying out these studies reflect those of observational research generally: assessment of the relevant exposures and outcomes with sufficient validity and precision, selection of an appropriate study design, identification of an appropriate and sufficiently large study population, and collection of information on other relevant factors that may confound or modify the association being studied. The challenge of accurately classifying secondhand smoke exposures confronts all studies of such exposures, and consequently the literature on approaches to and limitations of exposure classification is substantial. Sources of bias that can affect the findings of epidemiologic studies have been widely discussed ( Rothman and Greenland 1998 ), both in general and in relation to studies of involuntary smoking. Concerns about bias apply to any study of an environmental agent and disease risk: misclassification of exposures or outcomes, confounding effect modification, and proper selection of study participants. In addition, the generalizability of findings from one population to another (external validity) further determines the value of evidence from a study. Another methodologic concern affecting secondhand smoke literature comes from the use of meta-analysis to combine the findings of epidemiologic studies; general concerns related to the use of meta-analysis for observational data and more specific concerns related to involuntary smoking have also been raised. This chapter considers these methodologic issues in anticipation of more specific treatment in the following chapters.

Classification of Secondhand Smoke Exposure

For secondhand smoke, as for any environmental factor that may be a cause of disease, the exposure assessment might encompass the time and place of the exposure, cumulative exposures, exposure during a particular time, or a recent exposure ( Jaakkola and Jaakkola 1997 ; Jaakkola and Samet 1999 ). For example, exposures to secondhand smoke across the full life span may be of interest for lung cancer, while only more recent exposures may be relevant to the exacerbation of asthma. For CHD , both temporally remote and current exposures may affect risk. Assessments of exposures are further complicated by the multiplicity of environments where exposures take place and the difficulty of characterizing the exposure in some locations, such as public places or workplaces. Additionally, exposures probably vary qualitatively and quantitatively over time and across locations because of temporal changes and geographic differences in smoking patterns.

Nonetheless, researchers have used a variety of approaches for exposure assessments in epidemiologic studies of adverse health effects from involuntary smoking. Several core concepts that are fundamental to these approaches are illustrated in Figure 1.1 ( Samet and Jaakkola 1999 ). Cigarette smoking is, of course, the source of most secondhand smoke in the United States, followed by pipes, cigars, and other products. Epidemiologic studies generally focus on assessing the exposure, which is the contact with secondhand smoke. The concentrations of secondhand smoke components in a space depend on the number of smokers and the rate at which they are smoking, the volume into which the smoke is distributed, the rate at which the air in the space exchanges with uncontaminated air, and the rate at which the secondhand smoke is removed from the air. Concentration, exposure, and dose differ in their definitions, although the terms are sometimes used without sharp distinctions. However, surrogate indicators that generally describe a source of exposure may also be used to assess the exposure, such as marriage to a smoker or the number of cigarettes smoked in the home. Biomarkers can provide an indication of an exposure or possibly the dose, but for secondhand smoke they are used for recent exposure only.

The determinants of exposure, dose, and biologically effective dose that underlie the development of health effects from smoking. Source: Samet and Jaakkola (more...)

People are exposed to secondhand smoke in a number of different places, often referred to as “microenvironments” ( NRC 1991 ). A microenvironment is a definable location that has a constant concentration of the contaminant of interest, such as secondhand smoke, during the time that a person is there. Some key microenvironments for secondhand smoke include the home, the workplace, public places, and transportation environments ( Klepeis 1999 ). Based on the microenvironmental model, total exposure can be estimated as the weighted average of the concentrations of secondhand smoke or indicator compounds, such as nicotine, in the microenvironments where time is spent; the weights are the time spent in each microenvironment. Klepeis (1999) illustrates the application of the microenvironmental model with national data from the National Human Activity Pattern Survey conducted by the EPA . His calculations yield an overall estimate of exposure to airborne particles from smoking and of the contributions to this exposure from various microenvironments.

Much of the epidemiologic evidence addresses the consequences of an exposure in a particular microenvironment, such as the home (spousal smoking and lung cancer risk or maternal smoking and risk for asthma exacerbation), or the workplace (exacerbation of asthma by the presence of smokers). Some studies have attempted to cover multiple microenvironments and to characterize exposures over time. For example, in the multicenter study of secondhand smoke exposure and lung cancer carried out in the United States, Fontham and colleagues (1994) assessed exposures during childhood, in workplaces, and at home during adulthood. Questionnaires that assess exposures have been the primary tool used in epidemiologic studies of secondhand smoke and disease. Measurement of biomarkers has been added in some studies, either as an additional and complementary exposure assessment approach or for validating questionnaire responses. Some studies have also measured components of secondhand smoke in the air.

Questionnaires generally address sources of exposure in microenvironments and can be tailored to address the time period of interest. Questionnaires represent the only approach that can be used to assess exposures retrospectively over a life span, because available biomarkers only reflect exposures over recent days or, at most, weeks. Questionnaires on secondhand smoke exposure have been assessed for their reliability and validity, generally based on comparisons with either biomarker or air monitoring data as the “gold” standard ( Jaakkola and Jaakkola 1997 ). Two studies evaluated the reliability of questionnaires on lifetime exposures ( Pron et al. 1988 ; Coultas et al. 1989 ). Both showed a high degree of repeatability for questions concerning whether a spouse had smoked, but a lower reliability for responses concerning the quantitative aspects of an exposure. Emerson and colleagues (1995) evaluated the repeatability of information from parents of children with asthma. They found a high reliability for parent-reported tobacco use and for the number of cigarettes to which the child was exposed in the home during the past week.

To assess validity, questionnaire reports of current or recent exposures have been compared with levels of cotinine and other biomarkers. These studies tend to show a moderate correlation between levels of cotinine and questionnaire indicators of exposures ( Kawachi and Colditz 1996 ; Cal/EPA 1997 ; Jaakkola and Jaakkola 1997 ). However, cotinine levels reflect not only exposure but metabolism and excretion ( Benowitz 1999 ). Consequently, exposure is only one determinant of variation in cotinine levels among persons; there also are individual variations in metabolism and excretion rates. In spite of these sources of variability, mean levels of cotinine vary as anticipated across categories of self-reported exposures ( Cal/EPA 1997 ; Jaakkola and Jaakkola 1997 ), and self-reported exposures are moderately associated with measured levels of markers ( Cal/EPA 1997 ; Jaakkola and Jaakkola 1997 ).

Biomarkers are also used for assessing exposures to secondhand smoke. A number of biomarkers are available, but they vary in their specificity and in the dynamics of the temporal relationship between the exposure and the marker level ( Cal/EPA 1997 ; Benowitz 1999 ). These markers include specific tobacco smoke components (nicotine) or metabolites (cotinine and tobacco-specific nitrosamines), nonspecific biomarkers (thiocyanate and CO ), adducts with tobacco smoke components or metabolites (4-amino-biphenyl hemoglobin adducts, benzo[ a ]pyrene DNA adducts, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon albumin adducts), and nonspecific assays (urinary mutagenicity). Cotinine has been the most widely used biomarker, primarily because of its specificity, half-life, and ease of measurement in body fluids (e. g ., urine, blood, and saliva). Biomarkers are discussed in detail in Chapter 3 (Assessment of Exposure to Secondhand Smoke).

Some epidemiologic studies have also incorporated air monitoring, either direct personal sampling or the indirect approach based on the microenvironmental model. Nicotine, present in the gas phase of secondhand smoke, can be monitored passively with a special filter or actively using a pump and a sorbent. Hammond and Leaderer (1987) first described a diffusion monitor for the passive sampling of nicotine in 1987; this device has now been widely used to assess concentrations in different environments and to study health effects. Airborne particles have also been measured using active monitoring devices.

Each of these approaches for assessing exposures has strengths and limitations, and preference for one over another will depend on the research question and its context ( Jaakkola and Jaakkola 1997 ; Jaakkola and Samet 1999 ). Questionnaires can be used to characterize sources of exposures, such as smoking by parents. With air concentrations of markers and time-activity information, estimates of secondhand smoke exposures can be made with the microenvironmental model. Biomarkers provide exposure measures that reflect the patterns of exposure and the kinetics of the marker; the cotinine level in body fluids, for example, reflects an exposure during several days. Air monitoring may be useful for validating measurements of exposure. Exposure assessment strategies are matched to the research question and often employ a mixture of approaches determined by feasibility and cost constraints.

Misclassification of Secondhand Smoke Exposure

Misclassification may occur when classifying exposures, outcomes, confounding factors, or modifying factors. Misclassification may be differential on either exposure or outcome, or it may be random ( Armstrong et al. 1992 ). Differential or nonrandom misclassification may either increase or decrease estimates of effect, while random misclassification tends to reduce the apparent effect and weaken the relationship of exposure with disease risk. In studies of secondhand smoke and disease risk, exposure misclassification has been a major consideration in the interpretation of the evidence, although misclassification of health outcome measures has not been a substantial issue in this research. The consequences for epidemiologic studies of misclassification in general are well established ( Rothman and Greenland 1998 ).

An extensive body of literature on the classification of exposures to secondhand smoke is reviewed in this and other chapters, as well as in some publications on the consequences of misclassification ( Wu 1999 ). Two general patterns of exposure misclassification are of concern to secondhand smoke: (1) random misclassification that is not differential by the presence or absence of the health outcome and (2) systematic misclassification that is differential by the health outcome. In studying the health effects of secondhand smoke in adults, there is a further concern as to the classification of the active smoking status (never, current, or former smoking); in studies of children, the accuracy of secondhand smoke exposure classification is the primary methodologic issue around exposure assessment, but unreported active smoking by adolescents is also a concern.

With regard to random misclassification of secondhand smoke exposures, there is an inherent degree of unavoidable measurement error in the exposure measures used in epidemiologic studies. Questionnaires generally assess contact with sources of an exposure (e. g ., smoking in the home or work-place) and cannot capture all exposures nor the intensity of exposures; biomarkers provide an exposure index for a particular time window and have intrinsic variability. Some building-related factors that determine an exposure cannot be assessed accurately by a questionnaire, such as the rate of air exchange and the size of the microenvironment where time is spent, nor can concentrations be assessed accurately by subjective reports of the perceived level of tobacco smoke. In general, random misclassification of exposures tends to reduce the likelihood that studies of secondhand smoke exposure will find an effect. This type of misclassification lessens the contrast between exposure groups, because some truly exposed persons are placed in the unexposed group and some truly unexposed persons are placed in the exposed group. Differential misclassification, also a concern, may increase or decrease associations, depending on the pattern of misreporting.

One particular form of misclassification has been raised with regard to secondhand smoke exposure and lung cancer: the classification of some current or former smokers as lifetime nonsmokers ( USEPA 1992 ; Lee and Forey 1995 ; Hackshaw et al. 1997 ; Wu 1999 ). The resulting bias would tend to increase the apparent association of secondhand smoke with lung cancer, if the misclassified active smokers are also more likely to be classified as involuntary smokers. Most studies of lung cancer and secondhand smoke have used spousal smoking as a main exposure variable. As smoking tends to aggregate between spouses (smokers are more likely to marry smokers), misclassification of active smoking would tend to be differential on the basis of spousal smoking (the exposure under investigation). Because active smoking is strongly associated with increased disease risk, greater misclassification of an actively smoking spouse as a non-smoker among spouses of smokers compared with spouses of nonsmokers would lead to risk estimates for spousal smoking that are biased upward by the effect of active smoking. This type of misclassification is also relevant to studies of spousal exposure and CHD risk or other diseases also caused by active smoking, although the potential for bias is less because the association of active smoking with CHD is not as strong as with lung cancer.

There have been a number of publications on this form of misclassification. Wu (1999) provides a review, and Lee and colleagues (2001) offer an assessment of potential consequences. A number of models have been developed to assess the extent of bias resulting from the misclassification of active smokers as lifetime nonsmokers ( USEPA 1992 ; Hackshaw et al. 1997 ). These models incorporate estimates of the rate of misclassification, the degree of aggregation of smokers by marriage, the prevalence of smoking in the population, and the risk of lung cancer in misclassified smokers ( Wu 1999 ). Although debate about this issue continues, analyses show that estimates of upward bias from misclassifying active smokers as lifetime nonsmokers cannot fully explain the observed increase in risk for lung cancer among lifetime non-smokers married to smokers ( Hackshaw et al. 1997 ; Wu 1999 ).

There is one additional issue related to exposure misclassification. During the time the epidemiologic studies of secondhand smoke have been carried out, exposure has been widespread and almost unavoidable. Therefore, the risk estimates may be biased downward because there are no truly unexposed persons. The 1986 Surgeon General’s report recognized this methodologic issue and noted the need for further data on population exposures to secondhand smoke ( USDHHS 1986 ). This bias was also recognized in the 1986 report of the NRC , and an adjustment for this misclassification was made to the lung cancer estimate ( NRC 1986 ). Similarly, the 1992 report of the EPA commented on background exposure and made an adjustment ( USEPA 1992 ). Some later studies have attempted to address this issue; for example, in a case-control study of active and involuntary smoking and breast cancer in Switzerland, Morabia and colleagues (2000) used a questionnaire to assess exposure and identified a small group of lifetime nonsmokers who also reported no exposure to secondhand smoke. With this subgroup of controls as the reference population, the risks of secondhand smoke exposure were substantially greater for active smoking than when the full control population was used.

This Surgeon General’s report further addresses specific issues of exposure misclassification when they are relevant to the health outcome under consideration.

Use of Meta-Analysis

Meta-analysis refers to the process of evaluating and combining a body of research literature that addresses a common question. Meta-analysis is composed of qualitative and quantitative components. The qualitative component involves the systematic identification of all relevant investigations, a systematic assessment of their characteristics and quality, and the decision to include or exclude studies based on predetermined criteria. Consideration can be directed toward sources of bias that might affect the findings. The quantitative component involves the calculation and display of study results on common scales and, if appropriate, the statistical combination of these results across studies and an exploration of the reasons for any heterogeneity of findings. Viewing the findings of all studies as a single plot provides insights into the consistency of results and the precision of the studies considered. Most meta-analyses are based on published summary results, although they are most powerful when applied to data at the level of individual participants. Meta-analysis is most widely used to synthesize evidence from randomized clinical trials, sometimes yielding findings that were not evident from the results of individual studies. Meta-analysis also has been used extensively to examine bodies of observational evidence.

Beginning with the 1986 NRC report, meta-analysis has been used to summarize the evidence on involuntary smoking and health. Meta-analysis was central to the 1992 EPA risk assessment of secondhand smoke, and a series of meta-analyses supported the conclusions of the 1998 report of the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health in the United Kingdom. The central role of meta-analysis in interpreting and applying the evidence related to involuntary smoking and disease has led to focused criticisms of the use of meta-analysis in this context. Several papers that acknowledged support from the tobacco industry have addressed the epidemiologic findings for lung cancer, including the selection and quality of the studies, the methods for meta-analysis, and dose-response associations ( Fleiss and Gross 1991 ; Tweedie and Mengersen 1995 ; Lee 1998 , 1999 ). In a lawsuit brought by the tobacco industry against the EPA, the 1998 decision handed down by Judge William L . Osteen, Sr., in the North Carolina Federal District Court criticized the approach EPA had used to select studies for its meta-analysis and criticized the use of 90 percent rather than 95 percent confidence intervals for the summary estimates ( Flue-Cured Tobacco Cooperative Stabilization Corp. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency , 857 F. Supp. 1137 [M.D.N.C. 1993]). In December 2002, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the lawsuit on the basis that tobacco companies cannot sue the EPA over its secondhand smoke report because the report was not a final agency action and therefore not subject to court review ( Flue-Cured Tobacco Cooperative Stabilization Corp. v. The United States Environmental Protection Agency , No. 98–2407 [4th Cir., December 11, 2002], cited in 17.7 TPLR 2.472 [2003]).

Recognizing that there is still an active discussion around the use of meta-analysis to pool data from observational studies (versus clinical trials), the authors of this Surgeon General’s report used this methodology to summarize the available data when deemed appropriate and useful, even while recognizing that the uncertainty around the meta-analytic estimates may exceed the uncertainty indicated by conventional statistical indices, because of biases either within the observational studies or produced by the manner of their selection. However, a decision to not combine estimates might have produced conclusions that are far more uncertain than the data warrant because the review would have focused on individual study results without considering their overall pattern, and without allowing for a full accounting of different sample sizes and effect estimates.

The possibility of publication bias has been raised as a potential limitation to the interpretation of evidence on involuntary smoking and disease in general, and on lung cancer and secondhand smoke exposure specifically. A 1988 paper by Vandenbroucke used a descriptive approach, called a “funnel plot,” to assess the possibility that publication bias affected the 13 studies considered in a review by Wald and colleagues (1986) . This type of plot characterizes the relationship between the magnitude of estimates and their precision. Vandenbroucke suggested the possibility of publication bias only in reference to the studies of men. Bero and colleagues (1994) concluded that there had not been a publication bias against studies with statistically significant findings, nor against the publication of studies with nonsignificant or mixed findings in the research literature. The researchers were able to identify only five unpublished “negative” studies, of which two were dissertations that tend to be delayed in publication. A subsequent study by Misakian and Bero (1998) did find a delay in the publication of studies with nonsignificant results in comparison with studies having significant results; whether this pattern has varied over the several decades of research on secondhand smoke was not addressed. More recently, Copas and Shi (2000) assessed the 37 studies considered in the meta-analysis by Hackshaw and colleagues (1997) for publication bias. Copas and Shi (2000) found a significant correlation between the estimated risk of exposure and sample size, such that smaller studies tended to have higher values. This pattern suggests the possibility of publication bias. However, using a funnel plot of the same studies, Lubin (1999) found little evidence for publication bias.

On this issue of publication bias, it is critical to distinguish between indirect statistical arguments and arguments based on actual identification of previously unidentified research. The strongest case against substantive publication bias has been made by researchers who mounted intensive efforts to find the possibly missing studies; these efforts have yielded little nothing that would alter published conclusions ( Bero et al. 1994 ; Glantz 2000 ). Presumably because this exposure is a great public health concern, the findings of studies that do not have statistically significant outcomes continue to be published ( Kawachi and Colditz 1996 ).

The quantitative results of the meta-analyses, however, were not determinate in making causal inferences in this Surgeon General’s report. In particular, the level of statistical significance of estimates from the meta-analyses was not a predominant factor in making a causal conclusion. For that purpose, this report relied on the approach and criteria set out in the 1964 and 2004 reports of the Surgeon General, which involved judgments based on an array of quantitative and qualitative considerations that included the degree of heterogeneity in the designs of the studies that were examined. Sometimes this heterogeneity limits the inference from meta-analysis by weakening the rationale for pooling the study results. However, the availability of consistent evidence from heterogenous designs can strengthen the meta-analytic findings by making it unlikely that a common bias could persist across different study designs and populations.

Confounding

Confounding, which refers in this context to the mixing of the effect of another factor with that of secondhand smoke, has been proposed as an explanation for associations of secondhand smoke with adverse health consequences. Confounding occurs when the factor of interest (secondhand smoke) is associated in the data under consideration with another factor (the confounder) that, by itself, increases the risk for the disease ( Rothman and Greenland 1998 ). Correlates of secondhand smoke exposures are not confounding factors unless an exposure to them increases the risk of disease. A factor proposed as a potential confounder is not necessarily an actual confounder unless it fulfills the two elements of the definition. Although lengthy lists of potential confounding factors have been offered as alternatives to direct associations of secondhand smoke exposures with the risk for disease, the factors on these lists generally have not been shown to be confounding in the particular data of interest.

The term confounding also conveys an implicit conceptualization as to the causal pathways that link secondhand smoke and the confounding factor to disease risk. Confounding implies that the confounding factor has an effect on risk that is independent of secondhand smoke exposure. Some factors considered as potential confounders may, however, be in the same causal pathway as a secondhand smoke exposure. Although socioeconomic status ( SES ) is often cited as a potential confounding factor, it may not have an independent effect but can affect disease risk through its association with secondhand smoke exposure ( Figure 1.2 ). This figure shows general alternative relationships among SES, secondhand smoke exposure, and risk for an adverse effect. SES may have a direct effect, or it may indirectly exert its effect through an association with secondhand smoke exposure, or it may confound the relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and disease risk. To control for SES as a potential confounding factor without considering underlying relationships may lead to incorrect risk estimates. For example, controlling for SES would not be appropriate if it is a determinant of secondhand smoke exposure but has no direct effect.

Model for socioeconomic status (SES) and secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure. Arrows indicate directionality of association.

Nonetheless, because the health effects of involuntary smoking have other causes, the possibility of confounding needs careful exploration when assessing associations of secondhand smoke exposure with adverse health effects. In addition, survey data from the last several decades show that secondhand smoke exposure is associated with correlates of lifestyle that may influence the risk for some health effects, thus increasing concerns for the possibility of confounding ( Kawachi and Colditz 1996 ). Survey data from the United States ( Matanoski et al. 1995 ) and the United Kingdom ( Thornton et al. 1994 ) show that adults with secondhand smoke exposures generally tend to have less healthful lifestyles. However, the extent to which these patterns of association can be generalized, either to other countries or to the past, is uncertain.

The potential bias from confounding varies with the association of the confounder to secondhand smoke exposures in a particular study and to the strength of the confounder as a risk factor. The importance of confounding to the interpretation of evidence depends further on the magnitude of the effect of secondhand smoke on disease. As the strength of an association lessens, confounding as an alternative explanation for an association becomes an increasing concern. In prior reviews, confounding has been addressed either quantitatively ( Hackshaw et al. 1997 ) or qualitatively ( Cal/EPA 1997 ; Thun et al. 1999 ). In the chapters in this report that focus on specific diseases, confounding is specifically addressed in the context of potential confounding factors for the particular diseases.

• Tobacco Industry Activities

The evidence on secondhand smoke and disease risk, given the public health and public policy implications, has been reviewed extensively in the published peer-reviewed literature and in evaluations by a number of expert panels. In addition, the evidence has been criticized repeatedly by the tobacco industry and its consultants in venues that have included the peer-reviewed literature, public meetings and hearings, and scientific symposia that included symposia sponsored by the industry. Open criticism in the peer-reviewed literature can strengthen the credibility of scientific evidence by challenging researchers to consider the arguments proposed by critics and to rebut them.

Industry documents indicate that the tobacco industry has engaged in widespread activities, however, that have gone beyond the bounds of accepted scientific practice ( Glantz 1996 ; Ong and Glantz 2000 , 2001 ; Rampton and Stauber 2000 ; Yach and Bialous 2001 ; Hong and Bero 2002 ; Diethelm et al. 2004 ). Through a variety of organized tactics, the industry has attempted to undermine the credibility of the scientific evidence on secondhand smoke. The industry has funded or carried out research that has been judged to be biased, supported scientists to generate letters to editors that criticized research publications, attempted to undermine the findings of key studies, assisted in establishing a scientific society with a journal, and attempted to sustain controversy even as the scientific community reached consensus ( Garne et al. 2005 ). These tactics are not a topic of this report, but to the extent that the scientific literature has been distorted, they are addressed as the evidence is reviewed. This report does not specifically identify tobacco industry sponsorship of publications unless that information is relevant to the interpretation of the findings and conclusions.

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March 18, 2022

Smoking and air pollution: what are the risks?

Tobacco smoke is harmful to those who breathe it, whether through active or passive smoking. What is less well known is this smoke doesn't disappear like magic.

Tobacco smoke is a real factor of indoor air pollution: its components can remain in the rooms for a very long time! A study has shown that a non-smoker living with a smoker breathes in as many harmful small particles at home as a non-smoker living in a highly polluted city, such as Paris or New York!

What is tobacco smoke made up of?

Tobacco smoke is what is known as an aerosol, which is a mixture of 90% gas and 10% particles. According to the Academy of Medicine, cigarette smoke is one of the biggest pollutants found indoors, because it is full of harmful particles. To give you an idea, if you smoke 3 cigarettes, in 30 minutes you emit 10 times more harmful particles than an idling diesel engine.

Pollutants in tobacco smoke come from the high-temperature tobacco combustion. Particles in additives and paper such as (tar, nicotine, heavy metals, etc.) are found in the smoke emitted from the cigarette.

Active, passive and... ultra-passive smoking!

In recent years, there has been a major focus on the dangers of so-called third-hand smoke, or ultra-passive smoking. In concrete terms, it's air pollution linked to tobacco that lingers once the cigarette is finished. The particles contained in tobacco smoke remain suspended in the air for a while before settling on surfaces, floors and walls and becoming encrusted in textiles, such as carpets and curtains. They can then remain there for several months, even several years, in a closed space like a car.

Research is progressing and it's becoming more and more evident that third-hand smoke is a real danger. Despite this, it remains underestimated by many. Indeed, small particles of tobacco smoke also react with other compounds in the air and can sometimes form even more harmful compounds, which can linger for several months. Even worse, these small particles are resistant to ventilation and can still travel in the air once desturbed.

Keeping children out of the tobacco service industry.

The first and greatest victims of ultra-passive smoking are children. Because of their small size and walking habits (e.g., crawling on the floor), young children inhale particles from tobacco residue, and they are even more sensitive than adults to air pollution because of their faster breathing.

When they put their hands in their mouths, they often swallow them as well. For Professor Winickoff, a Harvard Medical School Pediatrician, a small child could inhale doses up to 20 times higher than an adult! Moreover, a recent American study reveals that more than 9 out of 10 children have nicotine residues on their hands, including children whose parents or relatives do not smoke.

This contamination is particularly harmful to those who spend the most time at home, whether they are young children or adults. Young children exposed to tobacco smoke residues suffer more from bronchitis, recurrent ear infections and asthma attacks. In adults, small particles are said to increase or worsen cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases, such as asthma and chronic bronchitis, as well as the cause of strokes.

Not entirely convinced yet? Wait for the rest!

Pollution that lingers where it is not expected

A team of researchers from Yale University sought to assess the problem of ultra-passive smoking in a non-smoking environment. The researchers placed a sampling device in the air vents of a movie theater for four days in Mainz, Germany, where smoking has been banned for 15 years.

The experiment measured the levels of 35 tobacco chemicals, including toxic compounds such as benzene and formaldehyde. This experiment showed that these levels increased with the presence of spectators, and this up to +200% during sessions reserved for adults! The researchers estimate that these rates would be equivalent to an exposure to passive smoking of one to ten cigarettes during one hour.

The authors of the study explain that everyone can potentially carry the components of this "third hand smoke" with them from one environment to another, and deposit them in a non-smoking area. These dangerous substances also evaporate slowly from clothing, with peaks observed when people are on the move, as they move into the room. These pollutants then remain in the room, even if it is unoccupied for several days, or even several years in the case of poor ventilation.

Also, the average concentration of small particles in 93 smoking homes studied was well above the World Health Organization's limits. The California Thirdhand Smoke Consortium even says that smoke pollutants can still be found in household dust and wallpaper that have not seen smoke in 20 years! Hotel cleaning staff are thus exposed to significant occupational risks. This is particularly the case when the smoking ban is not applied to an entire hotel. In fact, non-smoking rooms are still contaminated by smoke residues from smoking rooms.

What can you do to protect yourself?

Simple lifestyle rules can limit the harm of ultra-passive smoking.

Never smoking in your home remains one of the first measures to be taken. In a survey carried out by OpinionWay for our partner Demain Sera Non-Fumeur (Tomorrow Will Be Smoke-Free), around 36% of households with at least one smoker say they smoke indoors. For 71% of these households, this practice is daily. 58% of respondents (smokers and non-smokers) indicate that smoking in an outdoor area is the rule in their home. This is an excellent way to protect their loved ones, as long as it is not near a window or front door. On the other hand, 14% still smoke at the window and 6% under a VMC. Unfortunately, these practices are totally ineffective against third-hand smoke.

Finally, the car also remains a place where there are very high concentrated levels of pollution, since tobacco smoke microparticles fall on the seats, carpets and rugs in the passenger seat. As a reminder, smoking in a vehicle in the presence of a minor has been legally prohibited in France since 2016.

In any case, airing out your home is extremely important even if it does not completely remove the particles deposited on fabrics and floors. For homes contaminated by long-term smoking that has deposited many layers of toxic compounds over the years, it is advised to change everything: furniture, paint, flooring, and even the ventilation system!

In the end, there is only one way to protect yourself from the dangers of ultra-passive smoking: free yourself from cigarette addiction and promote smoking cessation for everyone! This is what we are doing together, with our partner Demain Sera Non-Fumeur and all our users!

This article was co-written with our partner Demain Sera Non-Fumeur (DNF) - Tomorrow Will Be Smoke-Free.

DNF is an association under Alsatian local law, recognised as being of public utility. Since 1973, it has been carrying out a dual mission of preventing smoking and protecting against tobacco smoke. DNF is a pioneer in this field and has never limited smoking to its health aspect. Indeed, for almost half a century, DNF has been addressing tobacco issues through human rights, environmental protection, social and territorial health inequalities and taxation.

Each year, the French Directorate General for Health entrusts it with three missions:

Strategic monitoring and monitoring of compliance with tobacco control provisions;

Information and awareness-raising for the general public and decision-makers;

Supporting the network of actors involved in tobacco control.

DNF is also present in the field, through eight regional associations with several hundred members. These associations are mainly involved in supporting victims of tobacco use.

If you need support, do not hesitate to join our support group ! .

If you want to moderate or stop drinking, feel free to also download sobero! .

Feel free to join the Instagram community for more tips on quitting smoking.

For more advice follow us on social networks: Instagram and Twitter .

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Tobacco and the environment

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RELATED MATERIALS

Most young users put disposable e-cigarettes in trash, creating huge streams of toxic and hazardous waste, as companies fail to take responsibility

A toxic, plastic problem: E-cigarette waste and the environment

Tobacco doesn’t just negatively impact the health of individuals, it also endangers the health of the environment. E-cigarette and cigarette waste can make its way into the environment where it pollutes water, air, and land with toxic chemicals, heavy metals, and residual nicotine. An estimated 766,571 metric tons of cigarette butts make their way into the environment every year , and according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, at least five disposable e-cigarettes are being thrown away every second in the United States , amounting to 150 million devices per year – which together contain enough lithium for about 6,000 Teslas. E-cigarette waste contributes to the already overwhelming issue of general electronic waste: in 2019, Americans generated 6.92 kilotons of consumer electronic waste, including e-cigarette waste , all bound for landfills or incinerators. The total amount of e-waste generated globally in 2019 was 53.6 metric tons, and this number is projected to rise to 74.7 metric tons by 2030 .

Cigarette butts are the most frequently littered item in U.S. beaches and waterways.  The largest U.S. cigarette companies sold about 190.2 billion cigarettes nationwide in 2021 alone. Cigarette butts are often disposed of on streets, sidewalks, and other public areas, and may then be carried as runoff to drains and ultimately end up polluting rivers, beaches, and oceans. Because cigarette butts are primarily made of plastic filters that don’t biodegrade, the butts that aren’t eaten by wildlife simply pile up on shorelines or at the bottom of bodies of water.

The problem isn’t limited to cigarettes. E-cigarettes contain plastic, electronic and chemical waste and many of them may also end up as litter – a growing problem as the products increase in popularity. In 2022, 321.4 million units of e-cigarettes were sold, generating $5.1 billion in convenience store e-cigarette sales alone. Corporations are projected to reach $8.3 billion in annual e-cigarette revenue in 2023. The lack of safe and environmentally friendly ways to dispose of e-cigarette waste is a growing dilemma, especially given the rise of disposable e-cigarettes. In 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found that 2.5 million middle school and high school students reported currently using e-cigarettes, with over half of them using disposables. After disposable e-cigarettes were exempted from federal restrictions on flavors in 2020, they skyrocketed in popularity,  with use increasing about 1,000% (from 2.4% to 26.5%) among high school e-cigarette users during 2019-2020. Inexpensive, flavored disposable e-cigarettes such as Puff Bar, which controlled over half of the disposable e-cigarette market in 2021, and Elf Bar have gained popularity and further contribute to e-cigarette waste. This increase in disposable e-cigarette products will eventually become tons of e-cigarette waste as products reach end-of-life.

• Cigarette butts have comprised 30%-40% of items collected in annual coastal/urban cleanups since the 1980s.
• Cigarette butts are the most prominently littered item on U.S. roadways, retail areas, storm drains, loading docks, construction sites and recreational areas.
• Globally, 1,134,292 cigarette butts were cleaned up in beaches and waterways in 2021, making them the world’s second most common type of litter after food wrappers, exceeding plastic bags and straws. Cigarette butts collected in U.S. beaches and waterways amount to over half of that figure making them the number one littered item collected by environmental cleanup crews in the U.S.
• However, not all cigarettes butts that are littered are collected. The 2020 Keep America Beautiful survey estimates that the actual number of cigarette butts polluting our environment is closer to 9.7 billion cigarette butts polluting roadways and waterways combined , along with 392 million pieces of other tobacco-related products and packaging, making up nearly 20% of all U.S. litter.
• Environmental cleanup efforts are a valuable and helpful endeavor, but they are not enough to combat the effect of littered tobacco. An overall reduction in tobacco use is essential to curbing the detrimental effects on fish, wildlife, public health, and water quality.
• 79% of smokers consider cigarette butts to be litter, but the majority of smokers (72%) reported littering a butt on the ground at least once in their lifetime and 64% reported tossing them out of a car window at least once in their lifetime.
• Smokers litter 47% of the cigarette butts they smoke.

E-CIGARETTES

• In 2020, Keep America Beautiful counted 894,700 littered e-cigarettes in U.S. roadways and waterways.
• According to a 2022 Truth Initiative survey, over two-thirds of disposable e-cigarette users disposed of the hazardous waste in the trash, where it can start fires in bins, waste trucks, or in waste processing facilities and 9% of young users littered their devices on the ground. Only 8% of young vape users disposed of their e-cigarettes properly through e-waste facilities.
• Inadequate or nonexistent safe product disposal guidelines from e-cigarette companies, a lack of recycling programs equipped to process e-cigarette waste, and limited federal guidelines inapplicable to the most popular variety of vapes and disposables, all contribute to the environmentally and publicly hazardous disposal methods common among young users.
• E-cigarette manufacturers do not provide guidance to consumers on how to dispose of used devices or pod/cartridge products , and there are no receptacles or specific processes in place. 
• The average e-cigarette device has a short life span and is often replaced with a newer, more efficient version before it stops working. The average e-cigarette battery only lasts approximately 6-8 months with normal use.
• Disposable e-cigarettes are single-use plastic products designed to reach their end-of-life much more quickly.

The actual number of cigarette butts polluting our environment is closer to 9.7 billion cigarette butts polluting roadways and waterways combined

BIODEGRADABILITY

Cigarette filters are made from cellulose acetate, a plastic which only degrades under severe biological circumstances, such as when filters collect in sewage. In practice, cigarette butts tossed on streets and beaches do not biodegrade .

• Under optimal conditions, it can take at least nine months for a cigarette butt to degrade .
• The sun may break cigarette butts down, but only into smaller pieces of waste which dilute into water/soil.

Growing concerns over the impact of tobacco waste on the environment, as well as the substantial costs of cleanup, have prompted states, municipalities, and institutions to enact a variety of policy actions. For example, 312 municipalities prohibited smoking on beaches and 1,497 prohibited smoking in parks as of July 2017 . In 2022, Florida passed a bill that allows municipalities and counties to restrict smoking on public beaches and in parks. This move was welcomed and backed by several local government bodies and constituents aiming to preserve the state’s delicate natural ecosystem, which includes coral reefs, wetlands, a dense forests. Additionally, four jurisdictions in California (Monterey, Monterey County, San Benito County, and Soledad) have prohibited the sale of single-use e-cigarettes.

Unlike cigarette butts, e-cigarette waste cannot be biodegradable even under severe weather conditions. E-cigarette cartridges discarded on streets mix with leaf litter and get pushed around by weather events, eventually breaking down into microplastics and chemicals that flow into storm drains to pollute waterways and wildlife. E-cigarette-related waste is potentially a more serious environmental threat than cigarette butts because it contains metal, circuitry, disposable plastic cartridges, batteries, and toxic chemicals in e-liquids. Currently, there are only two ways to safely dispose of e-cigarette cartridges: return to e-cigarette manufacturers and vendors for recycling or rinse under running water to remove nicotine residues, wrap in a scrap of biodegradable material, and discard as a plastic waste.

312 municipalities prohibited smoking on beaches and 1,497 prohibited smoking in parks as of July 2017.

LAND, COASTAL AND WATER POLLUTION

Cigarette and e-cigarette waste can pollute soil, beaches, and waterways. Studies have also shown that cigarette and e-cigarette waste is harmful to wildlife.

• Cigarette butts cause pollution by being carried as runoff to drains and from there to rivers, beaches and oceans.
• Preliminary studies show that organic compounds (such as nicotine, pesticide residues and metal) seep from cigarette butts into aquatic ecosystems , becoming acutely toxic to fish and microorganisms.
• In one laboratory study, the chemicals that leached from a single cigarette butt (soaked for 24 hours in a liter of water) released enough toxins to kill 50 percent of the saltwater and freshwater fish exposed to it for 96 hours.
• Another laboratory study found that cigarette butts can be a source for heavy metal contamination in water , which may harm local organisms.
• A study of the effects of roadside waste on soil found that patterns of hydrocarbon levels in the soil were similar to those of littered cigarette butts. This indicates that the chemicals in the soil had seeped out of cigarette butts. Some hydrocarbons are carcinogenic .
• Both the batteries and e-cigarette devices themselves contain hazardous substances such as lead and mercury .
• Incompletely used liquid cartridges and refills contain nicotine salts and heavy metals, which leach into soil and waterways or can be ingested by wildlife .
• Before lithium-ion batteries can be placed in the trash, they need to be fully discharged and cooled, submerged in cold saltwater for two weeks – covered securely with lid – and wrapped in newspaper .
• In California, 40% of the fires at waste facilities between 2016-2018 were reported to have been caused by lithium-ion batteries . Vape batteries may be the greatest threat to waste management programs.
• In New York in 2022, firefighters responded to over 200 lithium-ion battery fires stemming from e-scooters and bikes, making lithium-ion batteries the third leading cause of fires in the city.
• London Heathrow Airport’s Grundon waste processing facility reported three fires within the past six months in 2023, each suspected to be the result of discarded lithium-ion batteries in disposable vapes . A study by Material Focus , a British not-for-profit aimed at reducing and recycling e-waste, found that 1.3 million disposable vapes are disposed of weekly in the U.K., about 2 vapes per second .
• In 2022, leaders from 18 different environmental and public health groups directed an open letter to the U.K.’s Environment Secretary and Health Secretary urging them to launch a full-scale ban on disposable e-cigarettes .

THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY’S EFFECTS ON DEFORESTATION

• Research has found that growing tobacco contributes to deforestation , especially in the developing world. Deforestation for tobacco plantations promotes soil degradation and “failing yields” or the capacity for the land to support the growth of any other crops or vegetation.  Tobacco farming is responsible for 5% of all global deforestation.
• Tobacco farmers typically clear land by burning it. But this land is often agriculturally marginal and is abandoned after only a few seasons, contributing in many cases to desertification . Burning increases greenhouse gas levels by generating water and air pollutants, and decreasing forest cover which would otherwise absorb the almost 84 million metric tons of CO2 emitted by tobacco production annually.
• Production and consumption of tobacco releases carbon dioxide equivalent to driving 17 million gas powered cars each year , according to a 2022 report from the World Health Organization.
• 718,217 pounds of toxic chemicals were released from U.S. tobacco production facilities in 2021. This number has increased from 674,309 pounds in 2020.
• Tobacco production uses more water and wood, and has more pesticides applied to it, than most other crops , further affecting water supplies and contamination of the soil. Tobacco growth uses 22 billion tons of water every year.

• Approximately 600 million trees are chopped down every year by the tobacco industry . On average each tree produces enough paper for 15 packs of cigarettes.
• Tobacco manufacturers use four miles of paper every hour to wrap and package cigarettes and other products – making the entire industry a sizeable contributor to deforestation. This also leads to the creation of over 2 million tons of packaging waste every year.
• Since e-cigarettes quickly rose in popularity in an under-regulated environment, we know little about how e-cigarettes are manufactured and the environmental impact of the production process. Because of the significant impact this rapid rise has had on public health, until recently research and policy on e-cigarettes has focused on the youth e-cigarette crisis and lack of regulation rather than the product’s environmental impact .
• E-cigarette companies were required to submit information by September 9, 2020 on the environmental impact of their products as part of applications to the Food and Drug Administration to keep their products on the market, but this information is not yet publicly available.
• The lithium contained in e-cigarette batteries is not just an environmental and public health hazard when discarded, but a precious natural resource that must be conserved, reused, and recycled . The ten tons of lithium discarded in vapes yearly in the U.K. alone is enough to construct 1,200 electric vehicles . Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency estimates the world will face lithium shortages by 2025 . Combined with the complicated ethics of sourcing precious resources like lithium and cobalt, including human rights abuses like child labor, forced labor, and hazardous work conditions, disposable e-cigarettes are a tragic waste of this precious element .

INDUSTRY ACCOUNTABILITY FOR TOBACCO WASTE

• Many e-cigarette manufacturers simply direct users to hazardous waste/electronic waste disposal companies, which often don’t accept e-cigarettes.
• From the cellulose acetate of cigarette butts to e-liquid residue and batteries, waste management and hazardous waste disposal plants are not currently equipped to handle either type of waste . Federal regulations have not yet caught up to the need for guidance on disposal.
• Currently, there is no legal way to recycle e-cigarettes in the U.S and no documented baseline standards for end-of-life disposal by manufacturers. There is no requirement in place to hold manufacturers accountable for the post-consumer waste they helped produce or to devise a clear and safe system to dispose of these items as hazardous materials or e-waste.
• Even though guidance exists on best practices for holding companies like tobacco manufacturers accountable for reducing or disposing of the post-consumer waste that results from use of their products, they are not currently enforced across the industry by any governing body including the Environmental Protection Agency .
• States and local agencies that have the authority to enforce hazardous waste penalties can help reduce the environmental impact . As of January 2022, violators of hazardous waste requirements can incur civil penalties of up to $81,540 per day . In 2006, Washington state became one of the first states in the nation to pass a law putting the responsibility for recycling e-waste on the producer , not taxpayers. Manufacturers that produce electronics were required to pay for and manage their recycling.

The tobacco industry is responsible for producing much more than tobacco products — they are guilty of creating hundreds of thousands of pounds of cigarette and e-cigarette waste each year.

TOBACCO INDUSTRY NEGLIGENCE

The tobacco industry is responsible for producing much more than tobacco products—they are guilty of creating hundreds of thousands of pounds of cigarette and e-cigarette waste each year. Cigarette and e-cigarette waste presents serious threats to the ecosystem and requires a long-term solution. Instead of accepting responsibility for their products, tobacco companies are presenting topical solutions to the environmental problems their products create in a ploy for positive press attention.

Some tobacco companies have included reducing the amount of cigarette butts in the environment as part of their sustainability goals . For example, Philip Morris International claims it endeavors to reduce plastic litter from its products by 50% from 2021 to 2025 as part of its “Our World Is Not an Ashtray” initiative. Campaigns like this one appear to be hypocritical and misleading to the public . The tobacco industry not only created this new waste stream in the first place, but they are also trying to greenwash their harmful practices through misdirection and public displays of eco-activism.

POLICIES TO PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT

Tobacco manufacturers need to be held responsible for the extreme amounts of litter that their products create and should facilitate the environmentally safe disposal of their products – both combustible and electronic . Strong local regulations coupled with financial penalties are needed to limit e-cigarette waste and reduce the negative environmental consequences of tobacco products. Such policies have strong support, with 72% of U.S. adults supporting the addition of a $0.75 litter fee for cigarette packs in a 2021 Truth Initiative study. Increasing consumer awareness of the environmental toxicity and dangers posed by discarding cigarette and e-cigarette related waste into landfills, and encouraging smokers and vapers to quit using these products altogether, are the best ways to protect the environment from tobacco product waste.

The federal government could do more as well, including ensuring the tobacco industry is held accountable for waste they produce and enforcing all guidance and best practices regarding tobacco products waste disposal; establishing product and packaging standards that reduce the amount of packaging waste, plastics waste, and hazardous chemicals from tobacco products; requiring tobacco companies to establish recycling programs and other options for properly disposing of tobacco product waste. On a global scale, 175 countries in the United Nations have already committed to developing a legally binding international treaty against pollution and waste from plastic production, use, and disposal by 2024. This treaty, when drafted and enacted, will address the “root causes of plastic pollution” rather than its symptoms. This will be achieved by targeting the entire lifecycle of a single use plastic product from design to production and disposal. This move towards a circular economy from global leaders may finally make an impact on tobacco industry waste, along with many other environmentally detrimental industries and practices.

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July 12, 2024

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What plastic pollution does to your body, and what you can do about it

by Julia Busiek, University of California, San Francisco

Plastics and the long-lasting chemicals they're made of are accumulating in our oceans, leaching into our farm fields and piling up in landfills. Plastic is floating in the air and falling from the sky. It's also turning up in remote, isolated caves … so even if you have been living under a rock, you might have cause for concern.

What does all this plastic pollution mean for the health of people and the planet? And what can we do about it? Experts across the University of California are tackling our big plastic problem from every imaginable angle, from chemistry to engineering, policy to art, medicine to oceanography.

They're coming back with key insights for elected officials and everyday Californians. And they're developing practical solutions to many of the dangers that plastics pose.

This is your body on plastic

Scientists have documented plastic's environmental costs for decades, says Tracey Woodruff, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UC San Francisco. "Even though we know plastics are essentially everywhere we look, there's actually not that much research on how they affect human health ," Woodruff says.

California legislators concerned about these health effects recently came to Woodruff for advice. Lacking much data on humans, Woodruff consulted research on animal subjects. Nearly two dozen scientific papers later, she and her team at UC San Francisco's Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment published a report concluding that exposure to plastics appears to reduce fertility and increase cancer risk. They also noted links to metabolic, respiratory and digestive disorders.

Woodruff's research focused on microplastics, particles smaller than about 5 millimeters. "They are essentially invisible, but they're everywhere," Woodruff says.

These shreds and shards flake off from dishes, clothes, tires and a zillion other plastic items, and then follow gravity, wind and water into almost every environment on earth. Along the way, their chemical residues seep into our food, water, lungs and skin, and from there to our guts, blood, brains, placentas and poop.

Scientists are still trying to untangle the chain connecting plastic exposure to cancer, but they've identified a few key links.

When the immune system detects microplastics, it responds with inflammation, an all-purpose reaction to just about anything the body recognizes as foreign. And certain chemicals in plastics seem to block enzymes that your body produces to forestall the cell-damaging effects of oxidation. Oxidative stress and chronic inflammation have long been linked to cancer.

Microplastics also muck up the endocrine system, which regulates hundreds of bodily functions , from mood to sleep to sex to metabolism. Hormones are literally the key to these functions: they're teeny molecules that float around in your blood until they find and bind with the receptor that matches their specific shape, like a key fitting into a lock.

Many plastics contain a chemical called Bisphenol-A, or BPA. BPA molecules happen to look and act enough like the hormone estrogen that they can get themselves into estrogen receptors—kind of like if you accidentally jammed the wrong key in a lock.

BPA can't unlock the crucial functions that estrogen helps control, including puberty, menstruation and pregnancy. But BPA does block actual estrogen from binding to those receptors, so the hormone can't do its job. Woodroof points to studies linking BPA to endometriosis, infertility, asthma, obesity and fetal neurodevelopment disorders.

Other plastic chemicals cause trouble before the hormones even have a chance to enter your bloodstream. For instance, pthalates, a class of chemicals that manufacturers add to hard plastics to give them some flex, interfere with the body's production of the hormone testosterone.

"There's a surge in testosterone that happens during fetal development. That's the signal that starts the development of the male reproductive system," Woodruff says. By interrupting the supply of testosterone to male fetuses, phthalates may affect sexual development for life.

"When the child grows up, they may produce less sperm, or their sperm may not all be as functional as they would have been if they hadn't had this exposure as a fetus," Woodruff says.

These findings are alarming, but Woodruff points out that population-scale research doesn't necessarily translate to a noticeable difference in most people's health.

"It's important to remember that these effects are small at the individual level," Woodruff says. That means your biology might tolerate plastic exposure without a loss of function. Or, it might not. "People who were already on the line of having, say, fully functioning sperm may drift over into the other side because of a small push by these chemicals," Woodruff says.

A 'Paris Agreement' for plastics

"Most plastics don't biodegrade in any meaningful sense, so the plastic waste humans have generated could be with us for hundreds or even thousands of years," said Jenna Jambeck, an associate professor of engineering at the University of Georgia, in 2017. That year Jambeck teamed up with Roland Geyer, an industrial ecologist and professor at UC Santa Barbara, to study what's become of all that plastic.

Humans set over 9 billion tons of plastic loose on the face of the earth between the 1950s and 2015, Geyer estimated—enough to bury an area the size of Argentina ankle deep.

Just 9% of that has been recycled, and 12% incinerated, leaving nearly 80% of all the plastic that's ever been made to pile up in the environment. And if we keep making and tossing plastic at our current pace, we'll add another 4 billion tons by 2050.

That prospect is alarming enough to turn heads at the United Nations. The international governing body is in the process of negotiating a legally binding global treaty, a sort of Paris Accords for plastic.

Ahead of the first meeting in Nairobi last November, scientists at UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley launched an AI-powered online tool that integrates population growth and economic trends to forecast the future of plastic production, pollution and trade. It's been a vital source of information for negotiators to understand which strategies are likeliest to meet the goal of zeroing out plastic pollution by 2040.

Some changes matter more than others, the researchers concluded. Requiring manufacturers to use at least 30 percent recycled materials for some kinds of plastic, eliminating unnecessary single-use plastics , building up recycling and landfill capacity and charging a fee for plastic packaging could curb the annual rate of mismanaged plastic waste by 66 percent by 2050.

"I was so thrilled to see scientific proof that a strong treaty could virtually end the problem of plastic waste forever," said Douglas McCauley, associate professor and director of the Benioff Ocean Initiative at UC Santa Barbara and co-author of the study.

What would a world without plastics look like?

The U.N. plastic treaty faces some formidable obstacles, notably petroleum producing nations, including the United States. "Fossil fuels are used to make plastics," Woodruff says, and it's a lucrative business: Oil companies "make more money off of plastic in some cases than they do off of selling oil for energy."

Anticipating the global demand for oil to recede as the climate crisis accelerates, petroleum producers are expected to ramp up plastic production to make up for lost revenue. "They're like, 'Well, what are we going to do with all this fracking we just did? Oh, we'll turn it into plastic,'" Woodruff says. "That's literally their plan."

Engineers across the UC system are helping push back by devising alternatives to conventional plastics.

• Research from scientists UC San Diego and materials-science company Algenesis shows that their plant-based polymers biodegrade in under seven months. The paper, whose authors are all UC San Diego professors, alumni or former research scientists, appears in Scientific Reports .
• Cruz Foam began in a basement laboratory at UC Santa Cruz, where co-founder and CEO John Felts, an electrical and computer engineering Ph.D. student at the time, made his first batch of foam using chitin, the tough, versatile, and completely biodegradable material found in natural abundance in the shells of sea life. Today the company manufactures a Styrofoam replacement used for shipping.
• Scientists at UC Berkeley invented a way to make compostable plastics break down faster and with less energy, solving a problem that has flummoxed the plastics industry and environmentalists. They embedded polyester-eating enzymes in the plastic as it's made. These enzymes are protected by a simple polymer wrapping that prevents the enzyme from untangling and becoming useless. When exposed to heat and water, the enzyme shrugs off its polymer shroud and starts chomping the plastic polymer into its building blocks, such as lactic acid , which can feed soil microbes in compost.
• Lawrence Berkeley National Lab experts engineered a strain of E. coli bacteria that turns plants into a plastic polymer that can be recycled infinitely.

Where should you focus your energy?

Woodruff has learned enough about plastics' health risks that she's changing her habits to reduce her family's exposure, and trying to spread the word far and wide to help others do the same.

But that doesn't mean she thinks the responsibility rests with everyday people, mostly because it's impossible for any one person to avoid every possible source of plastic exposure. Research shows that government bans or restrictions on chemicals tend to work: after bans go into effect, the amount of that chemical in people or the environment declines.

"I gave my kids milk in plastic bottles back when they were young, and now I'm like, 'Oh no,'" she says. "But really, it's not my fault, and it's not your fault. The government should be making sure that I don't have all these toxic chemicals in my house."

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