Cecil brought the issue up in a recent comment, but didn’t expound upon it. What environmental effect do those 357 billion cigarette butts have?
It does help to provide a link to the column cited.
I would think at the very least cleaning all the ashtrays from 357 billion butts would be a chore. 
It’s been my observation that very few people that **I **see smoking use ashtrays.
357 billion cigarette butts strewn across the landscape.
Okay, my first post was probably way more snarky than it should have been. In an attempt to answer the OP,
That’s an abstract, but it does address the issue without an agenda.
It came from a somewhat less objective site:
The other question I had upon reading that essay was, how would a typical smoke-filled environment rate upon that scale used for outdoor pollution?
All those cigarette butts have to go somewhere, and I think a lot of them end up in the rivers. Ive waded though cigarette butts a meter deep around a storm sewer outlet on the Elbow River in Calgary. At the time I was working in a crew with several smokers, and just a few days before had scolded one for throwing his butt on the ground. His reaction was to stomp on it, thinking I guess that fire was all I was concerned about.
Most smokers seem to be oblivious to the thought of cigarette butts as garbage, and dont think twice about tossing them on the ground. I despise this behavior. I am constantly having to clean up after smokers on my job sites.
Cecil’s reasoning assumes that all particulates are the same, and that carbon monoxude is the only poisonous gas in cigarette smoke.
Assuming that all “smoke” is chemically identical is like assuming all white pills are the same drug.
Cigarette smoke particulates contain far more toxic stuff than ordinary smoke, and are smaller than typical smoke particulates so they get deeper in the lungs, creating a stronger effect ob lungs, and triggering a stronger systemic inflammation which damages the heart and blood vessels.
While carbon monoxide is in cigarette smoke, it is not the substance that is most harmful at low doses. The main effect of secondhand smoke is to very sharply lower the levels of a substance known as prostacycline, which plays a key role in making blood vessels behave properly. Carbon monoxide replaces oxygen in the blood, a different effect.
Extremely low doses of secondhand smoke lower prostacycline almost as much as firsthand smoking, so the dose/response to extremely low levels of secondhand smoke is quite different to the dose response to extremely low levels of carbon monoxide.
It is empirically incorrect to assume that if you cut the level of cigarette smoke by a factor of N that the harm is cut by a factor of N–the amount of harm turns out experimentally to be much larger at smaller doses than what one would assume if one assumes linearity.
Some of the material I discussed is in this Harvard study published in an American Heart Association scientific journal.
The Master wasn’t attempting to enumerate all the compounds in cigarette smoke, but simply wished to establish an order-of-magnitude comparison with typical outdoor pollutants. The point was that while cigarette smoke can be locally significant, it’s not a major environmental pollutant. Cigarette butts are a different story; they often account for a significant percentage of beach trash, for example.
But Cecil, you were not giving an order of magnitude estimate. Just making up numbers without any basis is not making an order of magnitude estimate.
While order of magnitude estimates are certainly not perfect, they have to have some basis.
With most forms of pollution a small dose will have a small effect, and often an effect actually smaller than proportionate. Alcohol consumption works that way–if you drink 20 beers per day it will be very harmful to your health, but drinking one beer per day will not be 1/20 as harmful–it will actually be beneficial. But cigarette smoke, counterintuitively, works quite the opposite way. A smoker who smokes 1 cigarette per day will not be at 1/20 the risk of heart attack as one smoking 20, but rather at 1/2. (I’ll find you a reference if you want) The effect is 10 times greater than would be expected linearly. So intuition about low dose cigarette smoke exposure will give very inaccurate estimates.
The name is Ed.
As for your response, what are you talking about? We weren’t just “making up numbers.” The one and only point we were attempting to make was that pollutants produced by cigarette smoke represent a tiny fraction of the global quantities present in the environment. If your claim is that those tiny amounts represent a general environmental threat, as opposed to a local, mostly indoor problem, that’s an interesting notion. If you’ll frame it as a question and provide cites, perhaps I can interest the boss in taking it up in a future column.
“Ed” writes: “The one and only point we were attempting to make was that pollutants produced by cigarette smoke represent a tiny fraction of the global quantities present in the environment.”
It wasn’t a point, it was an unproven claim. You assumed that cigarette smoke particulates were of equal toxicity to less toxic particulates, and assumed an incorrect dose/response behavior.
Ed also writes: “If your claim is that those tiny amounts represent a general environmental threat, as opposed to a local, mostly indoor problem, that’s an interesting notion. If you’ll frame it as a question and provide cites, perhaps I can interest the boss in taking it up in a future column.”
I’m not making a claim either way, because I have not done a calculation. You too should not take positions on things unless you really can back them up–you just cannot legitimately make the assumptions you made.
Cecil specifically called out PM2.5 particulates for mention with respect to cigarettes in the article, and the comparison between cigarettes and total particulates was done on the PM2.5 basis.
If you want to compare PM0.1 particles between cigarettes and general pollution, you need to find a measurement of human-caused PM0.1 pollution that everyone can agree on.
But this isn’t a correct comparison. With alcohol you have competing trends - the reduction in relative risk for cardiac problems (to a point), while at the same time things such as stomach cancer, liver disease, and other health problems are increasing. So you get a U-shaped relative risk curve. I’m unaware that cigarettes would have such a curve.
Further on cigarettes at low doses, Cecil already addressed this in an earlier column. In terms of pack-years of exposure, a large metastudy found that it isn’t the 1/2 excess odds ration at 1/20 dose. From: Lubin, Jay H. et al. “Cigarette Smoking and Cancer Risk: Modeling Total Exposure and Intensity.” American Journal of Epidemiology 166.4 (2007): 479-489.
However, changes in intensity of smoking did move at a different rate, but you were talking about cigarettes per day, not intensity.
Lester Dent =! Kenneth Robeson.
Una writes “Cecil specifically called out PM2.5 particulates for mention with respect to cigarettes in the article, and the comparison between cigarettes and total particulates was done on the PM2.5 basis. If you want to compare PM0.1 particles between cigarettes and general pollution, you need to find a measurement of human-caused PM0.1 pollution that everyone can agree on.”
But what you are saying was actually part of my point. Cecil compared levels of larger particulates, when it is the case that smaller particulates are more important. If the comparison is not made regarding the more relevant ones then one cannot reach a good conclusion.
Furthermore, it is also relevant what the chemical makeup of the particulates are. If, for example, one were exposed to plutonium particulates of a certain size it would be way worse than being exposed to ground up cat fur particulates at the same size. Cigarette smoke contains nasty N-Nitro compounds very specific to cigarette smoke, and nicotine not found in normal smoke.
Me: "With most forms of pollution a small dose will have a small effect, and often an effect actually smaller than proportionate. Alcohol consumption works that way–if you drink 20 beers per day it will be very harmful to your health, but drinking one beer per day will not be 1/20 as harmful–it will actually be beneficial. But cigarette smoke, counter-intuitively, works quite the opposite way. A smoker who smokes 1 cigarette per day will not be at 1/20 the risk of heart attack as one smoking 20, but rather at 1/2. (I’ll find you a reference if you want) The effect is 10 times greater than would be expected linearly. So intuition about low dose cigarette smoke exposure will give very inaccurate estimates. "
Una: “But this isn’t a correct comparison. With alcohol you have competing trends - the reduction in relative risk for cardiac problems (to a point), while at the same time things such as stomach cancer, liver disease, and other health problems are increasing. So you get a U-shaped relative risk curve. I’m unaware that cigarettes would have such a curve.”
What you said is correct. What I was trying to do though was to talk about the mathematical dose/response relationship, rather than matching the physiological relationship. It turns out though that one can actually produce a physiological match with the alcohol example, too. Alcohol in high doses greatly increases the risk of liver disease. But strangely enough, in low doses (one drink per day) it actually decreases it. (It is thought that this is due to anti-inflammatory and anti-diabetic effects.)
Una quotes a study: "A recent analysis showed that the excess odds ratio (EOR) for lung cancer due to smoking can be modeled by a function which is linear in total pack-years and exponential in the logarithm of smoking intensity and its square. Below 15–20 cigarettes per day, the EOR/pack-year increased with intensity (direct exposure rate or enhanced potency effect), suggesting greater risk for a total exposure delivered at higher intensity (for a shorter duration) than for an equivalent exposure delivered at lower intensity. However, changes in intensity of smoking did move at a different rate, but you were talking about cigarettes per day, not intensity. "
That indeed would suggest that extremely low levels of cigarette smoke, as in the outdoor environment, would not have a large lung cancer effect. But the main problem with secondhand smoke is heart attacks, not lung cancer. Apparently, from the article you cited, the dose response for lung cancer is non-linear in such a way that lower doses have weaker than linearly expected effects. But the opposite occurs regarding heart attacks. The Harvard study I cited in an earlier post which referenced a study showing that even short very low level exposure to secondhand smoke produced very large reductions in prostacycline was relevant to heart attacks not lung cancer–prostacycline maintains normal blood vessel behavior, it is not known to effect lung cancer.
You might also recall that in smokers the ratio of excess heart attack deaths to excess lung cancer deaths is order of magnitude 2 to 1, but in non-smokers, the effect of secondhand smoke produces a ratio of greater than 10 to 1. It is specifically heart attacks that are being induced at a surprisingly high rate from very low exposures. The article I am linking below provides a very good discussion of that.
I think you may be misreading the column perhaps. Cecil tallied up the PM2.5 particulates between cigarettes and the total US emissions, not PM10 or larger.
While this is true, in this case I’m certain that Cecil was limited by the length and the scope of the 800-word column.
I concur that smoking will produce different relative risk rates over the entire body for different mechanisms of morbidity and mortality. I’m uncertain however if the secondhand smoke relative risk has a good consensus as to the elevated relative risk. I have no specific objection to your citation, but I believe there is a significant range among studies on the issue of secondhand smoke largely due to the difficulty of determining the effective pack-years and intensity of the dosing. Cecil may not have felt like that issue was settled enough to make a firm pronouncement on what the actual relative risk elevation was; I’m not certain, as I’m not Cecil. It’s also possible he ran out of space, and a further column could address the issue in the detail which it deserves.
Una: “I think you may be misreading the column perhaps. Cecil tallied up the PM2.5 particulates between cigarettes and the total US emissions, not PM10 or larger.”
PM 2.5 are not the smallest particles. While PM 2.5 can get into the small airways, particles smaller than that can get farther down the small airways. And they cause much more severe effects.
I just did some research, and found there actually are significant sources of PM 1.0other than cigarette smoke, so the effect noticed empirically that very low levels of cigarette smoke produce strong effects on arteries, contrary to what I originally thought, is not largely explained by particle size anyway.
Me "Furthermore, it is also relevant what the chemical makeup of the particulates are. If, for example, one were exposed to plutonium particulates of a certain size it would be way worse than being exposed to ground up cat fur particulates at the same size. Cigarette smoke contains nasty N-Nitro compounds very specific to cigarette smoke, and nicotine not found in normal smoke. "
Una “While this is true, in this case I’m certain that Cecil was limited by the length and the scope of the 800-word column.”
But that was the most important consideration. Cigarette smoke is not chemically identical to other smoke. As I said before, you cannot assume all white pills will have the same physiological effects, just because they are all made from white powders. Black smoke particles differ from eachother, just like white powders differ from eachother. You cannot assume a certain level of toxicity of a new drug that is white by just assigning it the toxicity of aspirin.
Me: “You might also recall that in smokers the ratio of excess heart attack deaths to excess lung cancer deaths is order of magnitude 2 to 1, but in non-smokers, the effect of secondhand smoke produces a ratio of greater than 10 to 1. It is specifically heart attacks that are being induced at a surprisingly high rate from very low exposures. The article I am linking below provides a very good discussion of that.”
Una: " I believe there is a significant range among studies on the issue of secondhand smoke largely due to the difficulty of determining the effective pack-years and intensity of the dosing. "
What you said is true, but regardless of how one tries to determine exposure, it always turns out that the effects of secondhand smoke in producing heart disease compared to lung cancer is much stronger than the effects of firsthand smoke. In smokers cigarette smoke causes around twice as many heart attack deaths as lung cancer deaths, but the ratio is always much higher in non-smokers. There is a strong enhancement over linearity for the effects of secondhand smoke for heart attacks, but no such enhancement for lung cancer.
This is one of the stranger discussions I’ve been involved in. Your point seems to be that environmental tobacco smoke is a health hazard even in small amounts. In support, you cite articles from the second-hand smoke literature. It’s true that the BMJ article, for example, speaks of “environmental tobacco smoke.” Clearly, however, they’re speaking of the indoor environment - the abstract speaks of the danger to “non-smokers who live with smokers,” presumably in enclosed dwellings. To conclude from this research that tobacco smoke in the outdoor environment is hazardous to non-smokers is a long leap. (I ignore special cases, such as running the gantlet of smokers surrounding a building entrance.) If you want to make that leap, the burden is on you to present evidence that the indoor environment of a smoker’s dwelling is comparable to the general outdoor environment. This is, to say the least, counterintuitive. The assumption underlying second-hand smoke research is that non-smokers living with smokers are in an environment significantly different from baseline. Do you seriously want to argue to the contrary?
Ed writes : " Your point seems to be that environmental tobacco smoke is a health hazard even in small amounts. In support, you cite articles from the second-hand smoke literature. It’s true that the BMJ article, for example, speaks of “environmental tobacco smoke.” Clearly, however, they’re speaking of the indoor environment - the abstract speaks of the danger to “non-smokers who live with smokers,” presumably in enclosed dwellings. To conclude from this research that tobacco smoke in the outdoor environment is hazardous to non-smokers is a long leap."
To conclude from it that outdoor secondhand smoke is NOT a hazard is a way way longer leap!!!
Ed: “The assumption underlying second-hand smoke research is that non-smokers living with smokers are in an environment significantly different from baseline”
No, none of the studies magically deal only with non-smokers living with smokers. It is the cigarette smoke, not the living with a smoker that is the problem. Obviously, a non-smoker living with a smoker who does not smoke around the non-smoker would not have the same risk as it would be if the smoker lives around the smoker.
Studies measuring cotinine, a nicotine metabolite, show that even non-smokers who do not think they are exposed have gotten significant exposure. And studies have looked at disease rates as a function of cotinine levels, and found stronger correlations than when they look at things like “live with smoker” or “work with smokers”.
The question regarding the effects of outdoor cigarette smoke is whether a dose that low will have an effect. Intuitively it would seem that it would not. However, the dose/response effect regarding heart disease is highly counter-intuitive regarding “indoor” secondhand smoke, and so logically there is a serious possibility that intuition will fail too with outdoor air.
I remember a time when people (including you) dismissed the possibility that indoor secondhand smoke could really be killing people. It just didn’t seem intuitively possible. Now some people are dismissing the possibility for outdoor air, when the science really does not support such a dismissal.
I really don’t mean to be personal hostile to you. You seem like a good guy, who probably is correct a lot more than most people. But you, like everyone, needs to be careful about rejecting things on the basis of intuition.
Best wishes to you.
Paul, look. I don’t mean to be unkind. But your idea that outdoor tobacco smoke is killing people is pretty out there. If you want to make the argument, more power to you. But it’s not up to me to prove that outdoor smoke isn’t dangerous, it’s up to you to prove that it is.