How Does Cigarette Smoke Pollute the Air?
Cigarettes Contain Chemicals Although the primary ingredient in cigarettes seems to be natural tobacco, a number of natural and synthetic chemicals are added to cigarettes to make them more appealing to smokers. According to chemists at the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., cigarettes contain more than 4,000 chemicals, nearly four dozen of which are known carcinogens. Among the more prevalent chemicals in cigarettes are nicotine, formaldehyde, ammonia, arsenic, tar and phenylacetic acid. Cigarette Smoke is Not Clean While some of the chemicals found in cigarettes are burned off during the smoking process, many survive and even more are created. Arsenic and tar, for example, cannot be broken down by the heat of the cigarette; these chemicals are simply carried into the air as particulates in the cigarette’s smoke. The actual process of smoking, too, generates additional dangerous compounds such as carbon monoxide; the creation of these gasses further pollutes the air around a burning cigarette
