Cigarette butts: An overlooked source of PAHs in the environment?

Sina Dobaradaran; Torsten C Schmidt; Nerea Lorenzo-Parodi; Maik A Jochmann; Iraj Nabipour; Alireza Raeisi; Nenad Stojanović; Marzieh Mahmoodi

doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2019.03.097

Cigarette butts: An overlooked source of PAHs in the environment?

Environ Pollut. 2019 Jun:249:932-939. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2019.03.097. Epub 2019 Mar 25.

Authors

Sina Dobaradaran¹, Torsten C Schmidt², Nerea Lorenzo-Parodi², Maik A Jochmann², Iraj Nabipour³, Alireza Raeisi³, Nenad Stojanović², Marzieh Mahmoodi⁴

Affiliations

¹ Systems Environmental Health and Energy Research Center, The Persian Gulf Biomedical Sciences Research Institute, Bushehr University of Medical Sciences, Bushehr, Iran; The Persian Gulf Marine Biotechnology Research Center, The Persian Gulf Biomedical Sciences Research Institute, Bushehr University of Medical Sciences, Bushehr, Iran; Department of Environmental Health Engineering, Faculty of Health, Bushehr University of Medical Sciences, Bushehr, Iran; Instrumental Analytical Chemistry and Centre for Water and Environmental Research (ZWU), Faculty of Chemistry, University of Duisburg-Essen, Universitätsstr. 5, Essen, Germany. Electronic address: sina_dobaradaran@yahoo.com.
² Instrumental Analytical Chemistry and Centre for Water and Environmental Research (ZWU), Faculty of Chemistry, University of Duisburg-Essen, Universitätsstr. 5, Essen, Germany.
³ The Persian Gulf Tropical Medicine Research Center, The Persian Gulf Biomedical Sciences Research Institute, Bushehr University of Medical Sciences, Bushehr, Iran.
⁴ Department of Environmental Health Engineering, Faculty of Health, Bushehr University of Medical Sciences, Bushehr, Iran.

PMID: 30965545
DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2019.03.097

Abstract

Cigarette butts (CBs) are the most common littered objects in the environment and may contain high amounts of polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from incomplete tobacco leave burning. But to date there is no comprehensive study on environmental emissions of PAHs by CBs. So the main aim of this study was to compare the concentration levels of 16 PAHs in freshly smoked CBs and CBs from the environment (collected from urban streets and river areas) with different exposure times to the environment. The results showed that the mean concentration levels of 4 PAHs including naphthalene, acenaphthylene, acenaphthene, and fluorene were significantly higher in the freshly smoked CB samples compared to the street samples and were the lowest in the river samples. Considering the number of CBs annually littered, considerable amounts of these 4 PAHs may be released to the environment, which may be a threat to the quality of water resources.

Keywords: Cigarette butts; PAHs; Release to environment; Water bodies.

MeSH terms

Cities
Environmental Monitoring / methods*
Germany
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons / analysis*
Rivers
Smoke / analysis
Tobacco Products / analysis*
Urbanization

Substances

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons
Smoke