How Many Cigarettes You’re Indirectly Smoking Due to Air Pollution Levels

We were commissioned by HouseFresh to visualize 2024 air pollution levels as the equivalent number of cigarettes people have indirectly smoked throughout the year.

To do this, we found the average daily PM2.5 concentration levels in 2024 for the most populated cities in every country and used Berkeley Earth’s rule of thumb, that one cigarette approximates to 22 µg/m3 PM2.5 concentration. With this reference, we multiplied the result by 365 days to obtain the yearly number of cigarettes indirectly smoked in each location.