East Peoria Lego Robotics team presents skit
Cigarette Waste Brigade Include USA
EAST PEORIA — The Thinkinators are thinking again.
The FIRST LEGO League Robotics team — consisting of teammates from Bolin School, Central Junior High School and East Peoria Community High School — presented its five-minute skit to teachers, parents and classmates Dec. 9 at CJHS.
First Lego League is a robotics program for 9 to 14 year olds that is “designed to get children excited about science and technology, and team them valuable employment and life skills.”
The Thinkinators decided to focus on the issue of smokers who throw their cigarette butts on the ground, causing excessive amounts of litter.
“The invention we created solves the problem of cigarette butt litter. We’re not saying we support smoking. We’re just trying to find a way to eliminate waste. I think we all can agree that a cigarette butt on the ground is not a pretty sight to see,” said team member Mariah Tippet.
The team’s skit revolved around three high school students, one of whom threw a cigarette butt on the ground. His friend questioned him about his action, and they soon learn about the repercussions and harmful environmental impacts of throwing the butts on the ground.
Some may not realize it is illegal to throw a cigarette butt on the ground in Illinois, and offenders can receive hefty fines for throwing butts out of cars. Yet the Thinkinators said 45 percent of all littered trash are cigarette butts.
The Thinkinators’ solution to cigarette butt litter is called the Aluminator, a cigarette pack with a built-in, aluminum, fire-resistant strip that smokers push to the side, creating an area inside the pack to store the butts inside. After the pack is full of butts, the box can be transformed into a postage-paid package that can be sealed and mailed to a company called TerraCycle, which transforms waste into products.