Cigarette butts collected as part of Clean Up Australia day will be able to be recycled for the first time. Butts are the second most littered item in Australia so effective collection and recycling makes sense. Anna Minns, the general manager of waste collection program TerraCycle, says Australia is the eighth country to see the introduction of the new process. “First we separate them, and the organic waste – which is the ash, tobacco and the paper – is composted in industrial composting,” she said.