I notice that when a plastic fork is thrown into a fire it first melts, and then begins to combust into a black smoke. Exactly what chemicals are in this black smoke (and the other smokes that it produces) and which are harmful to humans?
Plastics are derived from petroleum and they burn a lot like petroleum too. The black smoke is mainly carbon, formed because the flame did not have enough oxygen to burn the carbon completely. If you take the burning plastic outside on a calm night and hold another flame in the carbon, you might see it light up the entire length of soot. Diesel fuel is similar in composition to plastic and therefore has similar combustion properties. Therefore most of the carbon formed when plastic burns incompletely is related to diesel particulate in the air.
