Santana Tamarak, owner of Tamarak’s Wellness Center in Scottsbluff, has built a business on helping customers achieve personal wellness, but recently he found a way to improve the community’s environmental health. “Just as we recommend to our clients that a cleansing is important to do a couple of times a year, Mother Earth needs that cleanse, as well,” he said. Smokers not only neglect their own health, but many of them are litterbugs. According to Keep America Beautiful, the largest community improvement organization in the U.S., 65 percent of all cigarette butts are disposed of improperly, and cigarette waste accounts for 39 percent of all U.S. roadway litter. Since December, Tamarak has collected about 9,000 butts and shipped them off to a recycling company called TerraCycle. He said he became interested in the company because of the odd items it uses to make recycled products. The company accepts post-consumer products that local recycling programs usually can’t take: potato chip bags, cheese packing plastic, oral hygiene products, candy wrappers and much more. TerraCycle has been in business for a little over a decade, growing from a small, dorm-room operation making organic fertilizer using the cafeteria’s kitchen waste. Now it is the world’s leader in the collection and reuse of non-recyclable, post-consumer waste, which it transforms into affordable products for the home, garden and office. “I chose cigarette butts, because I thought it was unusual,” he said. “They sent me a sort of rubber ash tray to show me an example of what they are recycling the cigarette butts into.” Primarily, the butts are converted into plastic pallets for industrial use, and any remaining tobacco or paper is composted. “Obviously, this isn’t a perfect system,” he said. “We still have cigarette butts. But when I look around at auto supply places, or the courthouse, or other institutions that have butt containers sitting outside — there are hundreds of them — I pick that as a place to start.” Collecting the butts is just a hobby venture for the small business owner. He said it fulfills his desire to do something for the community. And while TerraCycle offers prizes to organizations that donate significantly, Tamarak acts as a volunteer, expecting nothing in return. He collects cigarette butts from parks, the local courthouse and private donors. “Between folks that I know who drop cigarette butts off at the store (Tamarak’s Wellness Center), plus the courthouse, my first shipment was nine pounds,” he said. “My second shipment was about five pounds.” Participation in the nationwide Cigarette Waste Brigade is limited to adults age 21 and older. It is completely free. The Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company, maker of the American Spirit cigarette brand and partner with the Cigarette Waste Brigade, pays for the shipping cost. Additionally, for every pound of cigarette waste TerraCycle receives, $1 is donated to Keep America Beautiful.