The Genesis

Written by Kimbelin A. Balon

BS Biology 4A

“Drive time, peak hour, freeway, take-away delivery, drive through....the introduction of the automobile has had a huge impact on our lifestyle and environment.”

            Smokes of the car are annoyance to the people especially to those who live in the city. When you accidentally inhaled the smokes, you’re tendency is to cough, your eyes become watery and somewhat you had a feeling of irritations. The thing most motorists forget though is that, whether you use leaded or unleaded petrol, your car will still be polluting more than necessary if it is not properly tuned and maintained. Cars are the largest contributor of pollution. Fossil fuel combustion, particularly as it occurs in motor vehicles, has been identified as the LARGEST contributor to air pollution in the WORLD.

            A vehicle is only considered smoky if it emits visible smoke from its exhaust pipe for a continuous period of more than 10 seconds. Your car is not classified as smoky if the exhaust emissions are caused by heat or the condensation of water vapour, which can occur when the car has just been started, particularly on cold days. Smoky cars contribute far more to air pollution than well maintained cars. Anyone who has driven behind or walked near a smoky car will know, smoky car exhausts are very offensive as well as posing a risk to public health.

How is the smoke harmful?

Smoke is a by-product of incomplete combustion. Incomplete combustion can significantly increase the quantity of certain toxic chemicals discharged by vehicles into the air. These chemicals can cause mild to severe irritation to the eyes, nose, throat and lungs. They can also be absorbed into the body and cause deterioration in general health. The extent of these detrimental effects on people's health is related to the length of time one is exposed to vehicle emissions, the concentration of fumes breathed and various other factors such as age and health.

Driving a vehicle is the most air polluting act an average citizen commits. Air pollution is not a good idea for a variety of reasons, large and small. The right ideas for remediation of environmental degradations involve unselfish and compassionate behaviour, a scarce commodity. The right ideas involve long-term planning, conservation and a deep commitment to preserving the natural world. Without a healthy natural environment, there will be few or no healthy humans.

Written by Kimbelin A. Balon

BS Biology 4A

          It’s true that littered cigarette butts are a public nuisance, and not just for aesthetic reasons. The filters on cigarettes four fifths of all cigarettes have them are made of cellulose acetate, a form of plastic that is very slow to degrade in the environment. A typical cigarette butt can take anywhere from 18 months to 10 years to decompose, depending on environmental conditions. But beyond the plastic, these filters which are on cigarettes in the first place to absorb contaminants to prevent them from going into the lungs contain trace amounts of toxins like cadmium, arsenic and lead. Thus when smokers discard their butts improperly out the car window or off the end of a pier or onto the sidewalk below they are essentially tossing these substances willy-nilly into the environment.

         Discarded cigarette butts are a form of non-biodegradable litter. Carried as runoff from streets to drains, to rivers, and ultimately to the ocean and its beaches, cigarette filters are the single most collected item in international beach cleanups each year. They are an environmental blight on streets, sidewalks, and other open areas. Rather than being a protective health device, cigarette filters are primarily a marketing tool to help sell “safe‟ cigarettes. Whatever their direct health impact on or benefit to smokers, cigarette filters pose a serious litter and toxic waste disposal problem. Cellulose acetate is photodegradable but not bio-degradable. Although ultraviolet rays from the sun will eventually break the filter into smaller pieces under ideal environmental conditions, the source material never disappears; it essentially becomes diluted in water or soil

            Studies done by Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and even the tobacco industry itself show that these contaminants can get into soils and waterways, harm or kill living organisms and generally degrade surrounding ecosystems.

            Cigarette butts are the most common type of litter on earth. The toxic chemicals absorbed by cigarettes' cellulose acetate filters and found in butts' remnant tobacco, are quickly leached from the butts by water.

The impacts of cigarette litter are many:

 

• Toxic chemicals leach out of cigarette butts & can kill small animals

 

• Fires (destroys habitats for animals, homes; Economic costs of fires)

 

• Ingestion by children and small animals which mistake butts for food

 

• Cost of cleaning up litter & lost revenue from visitors

 

           Cigarette butts are not just ugly they also present a threat to wildlife. Plastic pieces have been found in the stomachs of fish, birds, whales and other marine creatures that mistake them for food. So ingestion of plastic cigarette filters is a threat to wildlife.

          Several options are available to reduce the environmental impact of cigarette butt waste, including developing biodegradable filters, increasing fines and penalties for littering butts, monetary deposits on filters, increasing availability of butt receptacles, and expanded public education. It may even be possible to ban the sale of filtered cigarettes altogether on the basis of their adverse environmental impact. This option may be attractive in coastal regions where beaches accumulate butt waste and where smoking indoors is increasingly prohibited. Additional research is needed on how this problem be solve.