1000 Flowers for the Planet - #542 Quit Smoking

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #542 Quit Smoking

This is definitely a hard one, because smoking is addictive and very hard to quit, but if you can, the benefits will be numerous. Cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals, including 43 known cancer-causing (carcinogenic) compounds and 400 other toxins. Cigarette ingredients include nicotine, tar, and carbon monoxide, as well as formaldehyde, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, arsenic, and DDT. If reading that doesn’t turn you off, then perhaps the benefits will turn you on. When you stop smoking you eventually feel much better, as your health improves and your breathing becomes easier. You reduce the risk of certain diseases such as heart conditions and emphysema.  The health of the planet will improve too, by not having all that chemical filled smoke floating around and by reducing the number of cigarette butts that find their way into the environment. The filters in the butts are designed to trap a lot of the chemicals mentioned before, hence these chemicals are leached into the environment when butts are not disposed of properly. Wildlife often mistake butts as food and can be made ill or die as a result. Furthermore, for those of you against plastic in the environment, the butts are made from a form of plastic (acetate), which only adds to the plastic pollution problem. There are many reasons to quit smoking, and smokers usually know most of those reasons. It’s hard – but it’s worth it.