Burning Tobacco Cigarettes with CA Polymer Filters Harms Smokers and the Environment -toxic Deposits and respirable Microfibers

Well over 90% of the 6.5 trillion cigarette butts smoked worldwide each year contain a cellulose ace-tate filter. 4.5 trillion of these filters loaded with chemical pollutants, each of which consists of approx. 15,000 individual fibers with a large surface area, are disposed of illegally and carelessly in the environment. Around 70% of them end up in the world’s oceans, 30% on the ground and as airborne emitters.Most of the approximately 1 billion smokers on earth believe that the CA polymer filter benefits their lungs and health. However, many studies and investigations have proven the opposite. The filter is a marketing tool of the tobacco industry. During smoking, cigarette butts emit around 100 micro- and nanofibers loaded with harmful substances into the respiratory tract per filter. With an average of 16 cigarettes a day, a smoker ingests approx. 1600 microfibers, with unexplained consequences. The filter effect against combustion chemicals from the exhaust smoke, i.e. the protection of the smoker, is negli-gible because the smoker recovers the reduced nicotine (deposits on the fibers) through a higher draw. This compensates for the filtered, lower quantities of chemicals.What remains is enormous annual global environmental damage, including cleaning costs running into billions. Despite extensive scientific research over the past 50 years, there are still important questions without answers.