I Admit I Am A Smoker And I Want To Show How Much Smoke A Smoker Smokes. Let's Look At The Different Quantities.

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Introduction

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I will admit to you now, I am a smoker, it's not good. I started at a young age about 15, now I'm late 20's and I'm starting to feel the effects. I know it's a bad thing, I don't even like it at time but the habit has developed and I need to tackle it. Part of the motivation to write this article is because I think it may help me to quit and also influence others. I have many reasons to quit now, and the primary one is my little boy is about to be born and I don't want him to smell cigarettes on his Dad and associate the smell with me, or with affection.

I wan't to show you a different aspect of smoking, I'll explain how much smoke a smoker smokes, how much tar they are exposed to, how cigarettes "burn holes in the pockets" and the waste associated.

This article isn't going to hammer on about how bad it is, of course this point is unavoidable since it's slowly poisoning me. Instead I am going to give some unusual facts. I hope I can keep your interest and if you're a smoker also on the verge of stopping then, read on, see if this helps.

The Average Smoker

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There are over 1 Billion people who smoke tobacco worldwide, which is a third of Earths adult population, It is believed to reach about 2 billion by 2025. More men smoke than women on average, with some areas having a ratio of 5:1 between men and women, and there is a closer ratio when observing lower age groups. In 2002 it was estimated by the WHO that about 20% of teenagers aged between 13-15 were smokers, with close to 100,000 teenagers starting each day, and 50% of these smokers will continue for about 20 years. Of course each individual is different and will smoke a different number, but the average seems to be between 10-20 cigarettes a day. Statistics from 2002 showed that 15 Billion cigarettes are sold each day, that's 10,000,000 every minute. Clearly these figures show the extent and popularity of smoking, but as we all know it comes with the price of health, every 7 seconds someone dies as a result of smoking, that's too much in my opinion folks.

For this article let's use for the example of an average smoker that is 50 years old, has smoked since the age of 15, and smokes 20 cigarettes a day. In this 35 year period they would have smoked 255,500 cigarettes, consuming 7300 each year.

The average lung capacity for Adults is about 6 litres of air, let's say a smoker has 4 litres and inhales 2 litres of smokey air per puff on the cigarette. I take about 20 puffs to finish a cigarette, so that's about 40 litres of smokey air per cigarette. Over 7300 each year they inhale and exhale about 300,000 litres of smokey, harmful air, that's not doing the body any good at all.

Weight

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The average cigarette weights about 1 gram, and about 80% of that is tobacco. With 15 Billion cigarettes sold world wide each day it equates to 12 million Kilograms of tobacco, that's over 4 Billion Kilograms each year of tobacco sold and consumed world wide. The average smoker will consume 6 Kg of tobacco each year and 255 Kilos over a 35 year period, that's 3 times a persons body weight of tobacco smoked in 35 years; it's a staggering amount.

But how can we weigh the smoke? Well Sir Walter Raleigh made a bet with Queen Elizabeth 1st, he wagered he could weigh smoke. Have a think, use your scientific mind for a moment, how can we do this?

Well Sir Raleigh weight a cigarette before it was smoked and recorded the value, then he proceeded to smoke a cigarette and carefully put the ashes onto the scales, and when finished he added the filter. By subtracting the difference he was able to calculate the weight of the smoke with consists of many different chemicals, which you can see an extensive list here: Tobacco smoke. This experiment that I have described has it's flaws, some molecules increase in weight once burnt due to oxidisation, such as burning magnesium, a better way is to consider the equation of enthalpy, none the less the experiment could yield rough values.

There is also humidity of the tobacco that must also be considered, which water consisting of about 20% of the tobacco's weight. So in one cigarette there is about 0.64 grams of dry tobacco. Let's assume a reasonable figure that 40% of the weight is lost when the tobacco is combusted, that means that after smoking 1 cigarette 0.25 grams of smoke has passed through the lungs. In one year the average smoker can inhale and exhale 1.8 Kg of smoke, an over 35 years it's a disgusting figure of 65 Kilos.

Worldwide, each day about 3.75 Million kilos of smoke passes through the lungs of smokers. Even writing this an doing the calculations I am actually staggered by these huge figures, no wonder we see serious health problems world wide as a result of smoking.

Amount of Tar

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Tobacco Tar is the name given to the resin that is produced as a result of partial combustion of the tobacco substance, instead of fully burning only part of the material does. It's a sticky substance that gathers in the airways of smokers and is partially filtered by the cigarette filter. This is toxic and damaging to the lungs and airways, over time it can causes serious damage through biological processes.

It coats the little hairs in the called cilia in the lungs and airways, it causes them to die, but these are important to the respiratory system. They protect the alveoli of the lungs by filtering tiny dust particles, when they die the harmful particles can enter the alveoli, it effects the gas exchange mechanism to decline causing bad breathing, and can lead to lung cancer. There are harmful carcinogens in the tar which include benzene, acrylamide and acrylonitrile, when the cilia fail these can easily enter the alveoli and damage the cells of the lungs, causing mutations which lead to cancer forming; 90% of all lung cancer cases are a direct result of smoking.

Each cigarette contains about 15 milligrams of tar that has the potential to enter the airways. So back to the average smoker, in a year they are exposed to 110 grams of tar, a filter this will only half the amount of residue, so that's 55 grams of tar which is the weight of a chicken egg. This 55 grams does not all stay in the lungs and the lungs does have a cleaning mechanism, but after a long period of smoking, the lungs will never return to the original condition after quitting.

The effects of tar is what ultimately causes respiratory health conditions, and to find out that I'm exposed to 55 grams a year is a scary thought. I can't imagine what my lungs must look like.

Waste

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So we've got a good idea of the cigarette consumption and the accumulative quantities, but what about the waste associated to smoking? How much waste does a smoker produce and what are the effects of this waste production?

Let's just assume for simplicity that every cigarette has a filter (some rollies don't use them). We know there is about 15 Billion cigarettes are sold each day, and 15 trillion a year. Let's assume they are packs of twenty then there are also 750 million boxes sold with plastic wrapping each day, which is 270 billion each year.

A filter weighs about 0.2 grams, so each year that is a staggering 3 billion kilo grams of cigarette filters destined for a long decomposition period. The average smoker will produce 1.5 Kg of filter waste each year, and 53 Kg in a 35 year smoking period.

Don't forget the boxes, the weight of the actual box of 20 cigarettes is about 15 grams. Each year if we assume all boxes are of 20, then the weight of the waste associated with the box is 20 billion kilo grams. The plastic weighs about 0.2 grams, so each year there is 150 million kilograms of plastic waste produced. The average smoker produces 5.5 Kg of cardboard waste, and 73 grams of plastic waste.

As we are all well aware, no all waste goes to the landfill, and a lot of smokers just throw their ends any old place. I am not an exception and writing this is also helping me understand my external effects from smoking, although individually they do not seem a lot if millions of people do the same things it quickly adds up.

Plastics find their way into the oceans and break down slowly, with some shrimp and similar fish eating these small particles that make they way through the food chain. The cardboard of the cigarette box is coated with harmful chemicals that will degrade into soils. Filter can take up to 10 years to decompose fully. The sheer scale of the waste produced will have it effects of the environment.

Costs of Smoking

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Smoking can have a heavy price to say the least, how how much does smoking burn a hole in the pocket? At today's price of buying a pack of cigarettes an average smoker with an average wage actually spend quite a bit of their income on smoking, and slowly causing health effects; heavy price to pay.

In the UK, at current prices, a box of 20 cigarettes costs about £10. If an average smoker buys a box a day, then over a month they will spend about £300 on cigarettes. We can compare that to an average monthly income of £1700, the cost of cigarettes is 20% of the average income of the smoker. I'm sure you will agree that 20% of a persons income is a lot of money. Maybe this is help put into context the amount that is spent.

The average cost of a pack of cigarettes is about $6, they tend to be cheaper in less developed countries. With a yearly consumption of 15 trillion cigarettes, the amount spent of cigarettes is in the region of 4.5 trillion dollars. It gives some indication of why tobacco companies probably want to try and ignore the huge impacts on health, that's a lot of money we are talking about.

As a smoker, if i quit I can save 100's each month, which could be used for better things like powering up my Steem wallet haha. A year of not smoking and saving is enough to enjoy a lovely family holiday, with clean health lungs and without the nicotine monster hanging over my shoulder.

In the US alone the costs associated with treating health conditions linked to smoking is a whopping $170 billion. This amount is huge, and each patient costs tens of thousands of dollars to treat. Not only is smoking a burnt hole in the pocket but it's burning a hole in the health service, also taking valuable time for conditions that can't be avoided. I think in this section us smokers have a lesson to learn.

Health Effects

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I feel that this article wouldn't be complete without highlighting the health defects causes by smoking. I won't be graphic, I think the bad teeth is bad enough, and many of us already have to deal with graphic images on boxes; impotent men and smoking babies it's too much. But we have to consider the data gathered on how smoking effects the quality of our lives, I'm sure we'd all like more time to be around. Around half a million Americans die each year from smoking related diseases, and 1/3 of males in China will have reduced life spans. There are many diseases that be caused by smoking, but the prevalent ones are lung cancer, vascular stenosis, heart attacks, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. These can all be prevented and avoided but not smoking, after quitting the risk of developing such conditions drops considerably over time.

Clearly we should mention the lungs, smoking badly damages the airways killing the cilia which help protect the lungs from absorbing harmful substances like the carcinogens in tobacco smoke. It's estimated that 22% of male smokers will die from lung cancer before the age of 85, and 12% of women. I don't know about you, but i'd like to live as long as possible, and wouldn't really like dying from lung cancer, 20% is extremely high considering the possibility of death. Smoking causes 20% of all heart attacks, as a result of smoking the arteries become clogged with sticky cholesterol, which blocks the arteries, which can eventually lead to a heart attack. The blood flow is decreased until finally it can't reach a part of the heart, which causes damage to the heart muscle. Once these irreplaceable organs are damaged, they will never fully recover and may causes problems, so it's better to quit sooner than later.

I don't want to go into too much depth on health issues as I explained, I'm people reading this know how bad it is for the health. If you don't then please consider it, especially as now you have an idea of how much smoke you are processing through the delicate lungs with each cigarette.

Conclusion

Smoking is a bad habit, the average smoker inhales about 6 Kg of smoke over a year, 55 grams of tar has the potential to cover the airway, it costs £300 a month to smoke, and produces a fair bit of waste. When you enlarge the scale and look at the worldwide statistics you can gain a sense of the shear magnitude of smoking and it's effects. Not only is smoking poisoning us slowly it is also effecting the ecology with the waste waste that is produced. If the well know health risks aren't enough to put you off, I hope with how I have presented this information, to show you how much smoke a smoker smokes that it can help others to stop. If you don't smoke, hate's off to you, be sure to remember some of this information and pass it on to your friends and families. The negative aspects of smoking (almost every aspect) can be avoided. There are many therapies to stop smoking, you can find a wealth of information on the internet, but it's always best to speak to your doctor.

I hope you enjoyed the article, I would love to hear your comments and opinions. Until next time.....

@physics.benjamin

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References:

Smoking - Wikipedia
Tobacco Smoking - Wikipeda
World Health Organization -WHO
stats.oecd
research gate
Tar
UK Income
Cigarette cost map
How Much Can the USA Reduce Health Care Costs by Reducing Smoking?
Heart Attacks
The Health Care Costs of Smoking

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