Why should people stop lighting incense?

Most people in Buddhist countries should have experienced the situation that you need to light incense but today we will talk about the unpleasant side of incense and why should people stop incense illumination.

My point in writing this blog post is to convince readers to stop lighting incense!

Incense picture from freepik.com

Self-harmed

The incense itself contains plenty amount of toxic substances such as incense smoke that contains particulate matter and some of the organic compounds that sound healthy but it not. Either way, incense doesn’t have a good side it can make you sick and die from the disease that comes from the smoke of the incense.

Similar the cigarette, when you breathe in an area that contains tons of smoke from incense it seems like it will not affect you however in reality these kinds of diseases don’t show immediately after breathing in the smoke. In fact, it slowly harms human health as you know from the previous paragraph.

Studies in Hongkong say that 52% of cancer patients were exposed to incense smoke and there’s a possibility that incense smoke is one of the factors that make humans get cancer. As you wonder cigarettes might have danger more than incense but this study will change your mind about this in their study they say incense has cytotoxic and genotoxic than cigarettes which means incense has more toxic than cigarettes.

Incense produces 45 mg/g of burn compared the cigarette which produces 10 mg/g. This information means that if you light incense in an indoor area it will likely cause damage to your health more than cigarettes.

Carbon Monoxide (CO) is a colorless, poisonous, odorless, tasteless, flammable gas that is slightly less dense than air which of course incense produce and most the people who use incense don’t know about this there’s also Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) but really who cares about these gas the incense produce hence let’s talk about the effect to our body from short term to long term.

Yes, incense can cause cancer in your body since some studies found that burning incense indoors or in places where air does not flow increases the levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) which are linked to cancer. Even though you don’t light incense indoors if you light or smoke it often you likely have a long-term effect on your respiratory system and can cause respiratory cancer.

“Small particulate pollution has health impacts even at very low concentrations – indeed no threshold has been identified below which no damage to health is observed.”, WHO says

Climate change

Although you don't see the immediate effects of climate change however you will see climate change effects soon if we don't stop climate change.

Incense is one of the plenty of reason that the world temperature is increasing which cause climate change or another name called Global warming. When you light the incense you’re actually releasing tons of gas that cause climate change.

As you know, the smoke of incense contains a lot of toxic gas such as Carbon dioxide, Carbon monoxide and of course particular matter. Hence stop lighting incense to not be a factor in climate change and global warming.

Dangerous facts

Thailand’s minister of public health has warned Thai citizens to stop burning incense sticks and papers in view of the fact that the smoke that these things release is threatening to human health and the environment

Lung Shih-Chun, a Researcher found out that air quality around the local template is double the WHO's minimum recommended value which is set at 25 micrograms per cube meter.

Not only rules but self-awareness

Even if the government passes a law to ban incense but somehow people will still light the incense because of their belief from religion or personal beliefs. Government should create self-awareness in people in the country and tell them all the reasons why they should not light incense or burn any papers according to their beliefs and also give solutions to the people such as online incense or fake incense.

Self-harmed

Climate change

Dangerous facts

Not only rules but self-awareness

Reference