A word or two about the cigarette filter

Or rather, not even about the cigarette filter! There are all sorts of things made with a filter these days! There are versions for self-smoking cigarettes, for smoking a pipe, even cigarillos and there are some with a filter. A few facts you may not have known are in this article.

The first cigarette filter was invented back in the days when cigarettes themselves were more of an exotic than a mass product. Until the mid-1930s cigarettes with filter were considered a luxury and were not available to all smokers. It’s all about manual production — there were no machines to mechanize the process.

Although the filter was patented in the late 1920’s and has not received a special distribution and not only because of the purely technological difficulties. In essence, there was no need for it, and the convenience it offered is very relative. The very first cigarette filter had the form of a tight roll of thin paper, it performed its direct function and to this day it is believed that such a design cleans smoke better than the acetate version. But it was not designed to filter smoke, but as a built-in mouthpiece, so that the particles of tobacco in your mouth when smoking.

The idea was good, but it was not easy to survive on the market at that time, because the production of cigarette mouthpieces as a separate accessory was established long ago. To any taste and purse, from any available material, from cherry wood to expensive block meerschaum with a jeweled finish. The world began to change when the British finally invented a way to automate the process of gluing the filter to the cigarette case in 1935, but… But the filter did not take root among the people and for a long time was considered a fiefdom of ladies smoking.

The invention “lay on the shelf” until the 1950’s, until it turned out that tobacco smoke is not only harmful, but can be deadly. At that the filter did not make cigarettes 100% safe, but for the smoking public was enough to know that such a device makes the smoke at least a little more “useful”)) Plus, the manufacturers themselves got into the game, as the filter “ate” a part of the length of cigarettes, reducing the most expensive part — tobacco. Moreover, the cost of cigarettes with a filter exceeded its counterpart without it, increasing the net profit of the manufacturer.

It is believed that the peak of innovation cigarette filter came in the 1950s and 1960s, which is not entirely true. Yes, in those and subsequent years there were a lot of different types of filters, from tobacco, where the smoke cleared the tobacco itself, just cheaper, to the infamous brand from Kent with asbestos, which was more dangerous than tobacco smoke itself. In fact, the improvement of the cigarette filter continues even now, it is just not so obvious to smokers.

For example, if the manufacturer of the same Kent in the 2010s had not talked about the silk thread “packed” in the acetate filter, then it is unlikely that anyone at all noticed this innovation. Almost no one noticed any changes in acetate filters, but they are there now. Filters made with ROA (Random Orientated Acetate) technology are being used to their full capacity. The acetate fibers are weaved in such a way that the volume and density are significantly reduced without reducing the filtering capacity.

Biodegradable Ochre filters made from unbleached paper are not yet standard, but may become so in the near future. And the usual acetate filter has long ceased to be “trash” for the planet. This is a favorite topic of anti-smokers, saying that we are the ones who pollute the earth with “eternal” filters from cigarettes. In fact, when exposed to water and sunlight, a modern filter completely decomposes in 5–7 years. But all those pharmacy blisters from pills or plastic bottles from all sorts of natural and organic products will rot away for centuries. But it’s not customary to talk about it…

ORIGINAL SOURCE: This article was taken from CigsSpot Blog