Transcript The Life Cycle of A Cigarette

The Life Cycle of A Cigarette
Extraction
• Main component- tobacco
• Nicotiana tabacum, or cultivated tobacco
• Nicotiana rustica, or wild tobacco
• Mainly grown in China, India, Brazil, Russia, Turkey, and the U.S.A
• Harvesting
• Priming: leaves are gathered and brought to a curing barn as they
ripen
• Stalk-cutting: the entire plant is cut and the plants wilt in the field
before taken to the curing barn
• Cigarette rolling paper
• Made from seed flax and paper pulp
• flammable
Production
• The tobacco leaves go through a process of curing, moistening,
sorting, and blending
1. Leaves are pressed into cakes and mechanically shredded
2. Then dispersed over a continuous roll of cigarette paper
3. A machine rolls the paper and cuts it at a desired length
4. A device grabs the cigarette and puts a filter in the end
Packaging and Transportation
• Each package contains 20 cigarettes
• Packs are mechanically sealed in cellophane and then hand-placed
in cartons
• The cartons are placed in palettes and then shipped to the location
Utilization
• Cigarette companies sell most of their packages to
convenient stores such as Wawa, Sheetz, and Uni-Mart
• United States average retail price per pack- $5.58
• There are about 46.6 million adult smokers in the U.S.
Proper Disposal
• Putting cigarettes in ash trays
• Companies such as the Ecolad Corporation are installing waste
containers for cigarettes
• Cigarette butts must be unlit or they could start serious fires
• Fines are given for improper disposal
Improper Disposal
• Improper disposal- throwing cigarettes on the ground
• Fires caused by improper cigarette disposal led to $4.1 million
dollars in damages in 2010
• Cigarette butts make up most of the world’s litter
• Find their way into streams and waterways, become detrimental
to environment
Sources
• http://www.madehow.com/Volume-2/Cigarette.html
• http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/009
9.pdf
• http://topnews.ae/content/22265-improper-disposalcigarettes-cost-41million
• http://ecolad.com/ecom.asp?
• http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Importance-of-Cigarette-ButtDisposal&id=4010561