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Timelapse of Cigarettes Left in Soil for an Entire Year
- donatj 3y agoIt's interesting that it's basically just the filters left at the end. Do the filters actually help enough to justify their existence and environmental impact?
- WhereIsTheTruth 3y agoIt's not just the filter, it's also the chemicals in the tobacco https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/smoking-and-cancer/whats-in-a-cigarette-0 https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-canc... The whole thing is toxic for the environment
- slothtrop 3y agoYour link pertains to health not environment. Most of the ingredients listed are in smoke. Inhaling any burnt plant matter isn't healthy. I'm not sure how a decomposing plant in itself can harm the environment. I could imagine that synthetic additives are, but these seem to be overstated.
- worik 3y ago> Inhaling any burnt plant matter isn't healthy. That feels that it should be true. But epidemiological studies of pure cannabis smokers (hard to find) do not bear it out. Lungs seem to cope
- Jarwain 3y agoCope doesn't inherently mean is Great. My understanding of this effect is in part that cannabis smokers just don't end up smoking as much mass that tobacco smokers do.
- maximinus_thrax 3y ago> toxic for the environment Not sure how true this is. The chemicals from the tobacco (aside from additives which I'm sure they're negligible in this context as the plant is not combusted) are.. from the environment? Nicotine is a pesticide so that would make it more toxic for certain parts of the environment, but I'm sure the environment will be fine consuming cigarettes. Way better than say a piece of plastic... (some) cigarette filters do contain plastic, so that's not ok, but the tobacco part should be fine.
- nvy 3y ago>The chemicals from the tobacco (aside from additives which I'm sure they're negligible in this context as the plant is not combusted) are.. from the environment? PFAS, phosphates, CFCs, carbon monoxide, and BPA are all "from the environment", too.
- maximinus_thrax 3y agoWhat a weird comment. Especially calling out carbon monoxide, which is emitted only if the cigarette burns in this context but otherwise it is ubiquitous in nature and even used as a signaling mechanism by living organisms.
- nvy 3y agoThat's my point. Just because things are "from the environment" doesn't mean they aren't toxic or pollutants.
- pstuart 3y agoWe need to have cigarettes use bio-degradable filters and then they'll be totally cool!! edit: /s
- philipkglass 3y agoThe filters are made of cellulose acetate, which also biodegrades (though more slowly than paper and tobacco): "Degradation of Cellulose Acetate-Based Materials: A Review" https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10924-010-0258-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10924-010-0258-0
- myshpa 3y agoEstimates for the degradation time of cellulose acetate filters vary widely, but they can range from several months to more than a decade, depending on environmental conditions. It's important to note that even though cellulose acetate might break down over time, it doesn't truly biodegrade in the same way that organic materials like food waste do. Instead, it fragments into smaller pieces called microplastics, which can persist in the environment for much longer and have their own set of environmental and health concerns.
- philipkglass 3y agoThe end state of biodegradation is "mineralization" where complex molecules are fully broken down to simple ones like water and carbon dioxide. Cellulose acetate will mineralize as fully as food waste does, but it takes longer than food waste. See e.g. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/app.1993.070501009 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/app.1993.070... for a discussion of microbial cellulose acetate mineralization (full article accessible through sci-hub).
- dmbche 3y ago"Considering the harmful potential of PM, our findings note that the filter-tipped cigarettes are not a less harmful alternative for passive smokers. Tobacco taxation should be reconsidered and non-smoking legislation enforced." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4847091/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4847091/
- mrguyorama 3y agoCigarette "Filters" are marketing. They have never made cigarettes safer, and in the early days they were often asbestos, so that's fun.
- mpsprd 3y agoThis is why when I occasionally smoke, I prefer smoking small cigars. Its dried wrapped leaves. It will decompose fast and (to my knowledge) is not doped with combustion regulators; they will extinguish pretty fast if left alone, whereas a cigarette will cleanly burn all the way. Another perk is how expensive they are compared to cigarettes, it's a natural counter to nicotine addiction.
- vladvasiliu 3y ago> whereas a cigarette will cleanly burn all the way. This may be region/regulation dependent, if you've noticed that. I don't smoke that often, but IIRC my cigarettes (in France) would extinguish after a while, without consuming themselves.
- Scoundreller 3y agoCanada has a regulation for a self extinguishing requirement. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/smoking-tobacco/regulating-tobacco-vaping/reduced-ignition-propensity-cigarettes.html https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/smoking-toba...
- whycome 3y agoSo is this done by adding something to encourage it to extinguish? Or by taking away what was previously there that let it keep burning?
- psychphysic 3y agoYou clearly need to go back to Smokey's fire safety class. Remember the fire triangle! There's only one thing you can easily change for a ciggy
- rvnx 3y agoWell, there's also another way, you could add much more smoke. If no oxygen, no fire, right :D ?
- whalesalad 3y agointeresting watching the mycelium start to eat it, only to seemingly die almost instantly.
- at_a_remove 3y agoShades of the infamous StinkyMeat there.
- skavi 3y agoThis article is written a bit oddly, no? “The comment section is full of praise for the photographer.”
- ke88y 3y agoSounds generated.
- raverbashing 3y agoYeah it's "blogspam"(?) for an YT video basically
- xstefen 3y agoTime to ban the cotton industry
- sneed_chucker 3y agoAnd this is why I smoke filterless cigarettes
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoWon't that kill you faster? What does your pulmonologist say?
- frozenport 3y agoor don't smoke
- tivert 3y ago1. What are the little specks that appear to be moving around the soil from the very beginning of the video? Some kind of mite? Nematode? 2. Is it really this easy to get a closed ecosystem going? I suppose the rubber seal is still somewhat permeable, but I assumed the oxygen in the jar would be depleted quickly, and all that would be left would be anaerobic bacteria. In this jar he seemed to have fungus and plants growing, and the little specks (if alive) kept going the whole time.
- hsjqllzlfkf 3y agoClosed ecosystems are almost a genre on YouTube. And no, it's quite difficult to get them stable.
- xracy 3y agoEveryone's talking about how they would smoke different cigars/cigarettes. And here I am just wanting everything in a jar timelapse in dirt...