Dive Brief: The city of Columbia MO's Downtown Community Improvement District has bought and installed 18 cigarette boxes downtown to collect filters and has ordered 32 more at $50 each from TerraCycle, a Trenton, NJ recycling company. The cigarette waste is shipped to TerraCycle's New Jersey facility, then moved off site for processing. The remaining paper and tobacco are composted. The plastic is melted and turned into pellets. And the filters are converted to industrial products like plastic lumber and railroad ties.
Known as the Cigarette Waste Brigade, TerraCycle’s effort to make recycling cigarettes easier for smokers is a first-of-its-kind program according to Albe Zakes, VP of communications at the company, who told Fusion that “before TerraCycle cigarettes weren’t recyclable.” Since kicking off in New Orleans, the Cigarette Waste Brigade can now be found in cities nationwide, as well as internationally in Australia, the U.K., France, and Brazil. To date in the United States, TerraCycle has set
up over 7,000 cigarette recycling bins and more than 38 million butts having been collected.
TerraCycle's
Cigarette Waste Brigade has collected nearly 36 million units of cigarette butts to date. By using funding from Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company, TerraCycle has the ability to turn the cigarette waste into plastic pellets, while composting the leftover tobacco. Additionally, for every pound of cigarette waste collected, Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company donates $1 to the Keep America Beautiful Cigarette Litter Prevention Program.
The city, along with its Downtown Development District and New Jersey-based recycler TerraCycle, installed 50 new cigarette-recycling receptacles on several downtown blocks.
TerraCycle, which uses difficult-to-recycle products in its process, has a nationwide program, along with New Orleans and other cities, that recycles cigarette butts into plastic pellets later used to make products, such as industrial pallets.
