Each cigarette in China would have a cigarette brand name printed on it and even an icon, but even this humble little logo can cause great harm.
“In fact, cigarette paper in tobacco is the really harmful thing,” environment expert Dong Jinshi from China said that cigarette paper is often ignored by smokers. If the printed text on the cigarette paper does not use environmentally friendly ink, the ink would contain benzene and toluene. People inhale “poison” unconsciously, causing certain health hazards.
I casually looked at several brands of cigarettes such as “Zhonghua”, “Yellow Crane Tower” and “Zhongnanhai”, and found that each cigarette was printed with the trademark LOGO of that brand of cigarettes, but the positions of printing are different – some on cigarette paper, some on the filter.
Environment expert Dong Jinshi told reporters that some of the words printed on each cigarette contained lead, and as ink is used, it also contained benzene and toluene. During the smoking process, these substances will not be burned and will be unknowingly sucked into the body. This hazard may be greater than that of the filter.
Recently, some netizens have reported that Chinese cigarette manufacturers use the harmful plastic material “polypropylene” instead of the commonly used acetate fiber in making cigarette filters, which not only cannot filter the harmful substances of cigarettes, but also is more poisonous than nicotine itself. However, Dong Jinshi believes that polypropylene itself is not poisonous. If the filter is tasteless, the toxicity should be small, and solvent of the adhesive may be volatilized.
“The harm of cigarette paper is often overlooked.” Dong Jinshi said that China does not have strict regulations on the use of ink for cigarette paper. In Dong Jinshi’s view, even food paper in China now uses less than 10% of environmentally friendly ink, “cigarette rolling paper cannot be better than food paper.”
The current price of environmentally friendly inks and ordinary inks can differ by half, high prices and high costs are the main reason for poor promotion of environmentally friendly inks in China.
Dong Jinshi therefore suggested that smokers should use their own filter cigarette holders. On the one hand, they can filter tar in cigarettes. On the other hand, they can reduce the chance of direct contact with the typeface on the cigarette paper and avoid the harm of ink.