Your Tuesday, May 1, article on page three about the Environmental Protection Agency stated: “The volume of toxic chemicals released to our environment, especially the air, is staggering. The information shows that many companies are still treating the atmosphere as a giant toxic waste dump.”

Since this has been known for many years it would make sense to me to not only severely tax and regulate this abomination as you do my little insignificant (by comparison) cigarette smoke.

I’ve always said that I could more easily swallow the high cigarette taxes and smoking restrictions if someone would first clean up the air I breathe. And the EPA article and in fact very few articles even mention the truck and airplane fumes we can’t get away from breathing.

Instead of more useless smoking restrictions why don’t we pass a law mandating that all wear face masks except when sleeping!

Joan S. Janeski

Bangor