More on cigarette butt recycling

San Diego's Curtis Baffico shows the original 700-plus cigarette butts he collected in 30 minutes that inspired him to launch the Butt Redemption Value program.

What if all these cigarette butts had a value? What if you could trade them in for cash? Would they then disappear from streets, beaches and parks?

Curtis Baffico, a San Diego stock trader who moonlights as an environmentalist, asked himself these questions and decided to create a recycling system to try to answer them. Baffico raises money on his website, Ripplelife.org, then pays out a “Butt Redemption Value” of $3/pound for whatever cigarette ends people collect and turn in at monthly collection events.

It takes roughly 1,500 cigarette butts to add up to a pound, Baffico says, and he admits that $3 isn’t a lot of compensation for the effort required to pick them up. Still, at the first event, held in January in San Diego’s Pacific Beach, Baffico and other volunteers collected 11,250 cigarette butts. A second event netted 26,000.

But whatever can you recycle them into?

Baffico hopes to repurpose every butt he collects, insuring that it never sees a landfill. One of his recycling ideas: Grind up the butts and add them to concrete, replacing fibermesh, an anti-cracking agent that is often added to concrete and usually made from polypropylene. The thought is that the concrete would surround the butts — for instance, in a slab foundation — and keep their toxins from leaching into the environment.

http://www.miller-mccune.com/environment/can-cigarette-butts-be-recycled-32091/

Cigarette Stubbi

CIGARETTE STUBBI

The Stubbi pouch is a reusable anti litter device to help with the problem of cigarette butts. It helps us all to take responsibility for litter and our environment.

Stubbi is portable, pocket sized, soft, compact pouch that fits neatly into a pocket or bag, it has been designed to provide smokers with a reusable product which they can carry with them at all times. The eco-friendly pouch has a fireproof lining, which can be used to safely and hygienically extinguish cigarettes.

It enables cigarette butts to be stored until they can be dropped into a bin rather than dropped in the street removing the problem of littering cigarette butts on the street.

The Stubbi pouch is designed to store up to five cigarette butts at any one time and its airtight design means that smoke odours are locked inside. It is a clean method of disposing of cigarette butts that can be emptied when full and reused again, and again and again!

Pick up your butts :)

http://www.cigarettelitter.org/index.asp?PageName=Maki1




While ashtrays are an important part of the solution, they don't do any good if people don't use them. That's why raising awareness about the impact of cigarette litter is so important.

Intriguing

Following my research I was curious to know if cigarette butts could be recycled...

I came across this article;

Cigarette butts 'block corrosion'

By Matt McGrathScience correspondent, World Service                               Recycling of cigarette ends could become financially viable

Scientists working in China say they have found a novel use for discarded cigarette butts.

They have discovered that chemicals extracted from these filters can protect steel pipes from corrosion.

The research is published in the journal Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research.

The work could make the prospect of recycling cigarette butts financially viable, experts say.

On pavements, nature trails and especially on beaches, wherever you find people on this planet you inevitably find cigarette butts.

Around 4.5 trillion of these remnants find their way into the environment every year.

Capable of surviving up to 15 years in the sea, cigarette ends contain chemicals that are toxic to many forms of fish.

Now researchers in China say they have found a novel use for these chemicals that could make the recycling of cigarette butts financially worthwhile.

The scientists found that by immersing the butts in water they were able to extract nine different chemical compounds, including nicotine.

When these extracts were applied to a type of steel widely used in the oil industry they were found to be very effective in preventing corrosion, even under harsh conditions.

The replacement of rusting steel pipes is a major ongoing cost for oil producers around the world.

China itself has no shortage of cigarette butts for scientists to experiment with - one third of the world's cigarettes are consumed there.

A bit of research

About Cigarette butts

"Cigarette butts present a threat to wildlife. Cigarette filters have been found in the stomachs of fish, birds, whales and other marine creatures who mistake them for food ... Composed of cellulose acetate, a form of plastic, cigarette butts can persist in the environment as long as other forms of plastic." Cigarette butts are not biodegradable!

The acetate (plastic) filters can take many years to decompose. Smokers may not realize that their actions have such a lasting, negative impact on the environment.

"Please Don't Litter" - you won't find such a message on cigarette packs. 

After that butt gets casually flicked onto the street, nature trail, or beach? Wind and rain carry the cigarette into the water supply, where the toxic chemicals the cigarette filter was designed to trap leak out into aquatic ecosystems, threatening the quality of the water and many aquatic lifeforms. Cigarette butts may seem small, but with several trillion butts littered every year, the toxic chemicals add up!

Observation

I had noticed before now how many cigarette butts are casually thrown onto the street/ground however it wasn't until the other night whilst on my way back from the cinema I thought why? Why do smokers do that? As I couldn't help noticing a smoker carelessly flicking her butt to the ground.

I then thought to myself how can I stop people throwing their cigarette butts on the ground...

Idea for the mo...

From our discussion in last lesson there was an idea proposed surrounding my original idea regarding people sticking chewing gum under tables, as i've discontinued this idea for reasons stated it was suggested I collect data from other people in different areas about what they find irritating and gross - So people becoming sensors... I could then collect and plot information on a graph to show what people find grossest.

 Example graph