Metal compounds used in industries associated with an increased risk of lung cancer. Workers with the highest exposures are those involved in removing zinc and lead from minerals, producing cadmium powders, welding cadmium-coated steel, and working with solders that contain cadmium. Cadmium metal’s primary use is as a metal coating to prevent corrosion. Other uses are in plastic and synthetic products, in batteries, stabilizers for polyvinyl chloride, and in fungicides. The industrial processes involved in making these products release cadmium into the air, surface water, groundwater, and topsoil where cadmium can be taken up by both land and water plants and, in turn, transferred to animals. Contaminated topsoil that allows uptake into tobacco plants may be indirectly responsible for the greatest nonoccupational human exposure to cadmium—smoking. For nonsmokers, food is the main source of human exposure to cadmium.