Recycling company to smokers: We want your cigarette butts

[Judi Lynn]

Recycling company to smokers: We want your cigarette butts

~ video ~

CTVNews.ca Staff
Published Saturday, Jan. 19, 2013 1:11PM EST
Last Updated Saturday, Jan. 19, 2013 1:30PM EST


An Ontario company wants smokers to stop throwing out their stubbed-out cigarette butts, and instead send them in for recycling so they can be turned into useful products.

Toronto-based Terracycle turns cigarette waste into fertilizer, composting material and even industrial plastic.

Company spokesperson Jay Reyes told CTV News Channel that, contrary to public belief, cigarette butts are not biodegradable.

“There’s actually cellulose acetate in cigarette butts, which is actually plastic polymer and not natural at all,” he said.

More: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/recycling-company-to-smokers-we-want-your-cigarette-butts-1.1121130#ixzz2IRroxAut

[Politicalboi]

1. I never would have guessed

"Contrary to public belief, cigarette butts are not biodegradable".

Who in their right mind would think butts are biodegradable?

[customerserviceguy]

2. That would be

idiots who toss them out of cars. Or, a favorite of my co-workers, flick them into the planting strip between the building and the parking lot.

[chaska]

3. Yeah, good luck with that. I'd be willing to bet...

that fewer smoker recycle than non-smokers. Smokers are slobs and just plain slack. They can't be bothered.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. Local article says Terracycle is New Jersey based, also international...

lousy reporting uggh!


Ex-smoker recycling cigarette butts
http://portlandtribune.com/sl/126705-ex-smoker-recycling-cigarette%20butts

"..So Stoner, 33, is distributing metal coffee cans to willing restaurants and bars to fill with butts and other cigarette-related trash before sending it all off to New Jersey-based TerraCycle, which is internationally known for finding new uses for hard-to-recycle materials. Servers can now end their shifts by emptying ashtrays into her cans rather than into the trash..."

Thank you for the link! Smoking is my last dirty habit, and I searched for years to find somewhere to recycle butts with no luck. Now I may be able to add them to Miss Stoner's shipments

KnR

[clydefrand]

5. When I was stationed in Tokyo, Japan, they recycled the butts

and made 'new' cigarettes' out of them for the Japanese market (most could not afford American made ones).
(this was in 1954-56)