AZUSA - Kym Simpson wants to make sure his butt is useful. That is, his cigarette butt. Though he's been a lifelong smoker, the Azusa resident was raised to be health-conscious and nature-minded, so the fact that more than a third of all cigarette butts end up as roadway litter didn't settle with him. "If they (cigarette butts) end up in a landfill they take a long time to decompose," Simpson said. "The country needs to get into recycling, there's no respect or consideration for other people and the environment." So when he got a flier in the mail about the Cigarette Waste Brigade, a national program to collect cigarette butts for recycling, he was interested. The program is a partnership between TerraCycle Inc., a "up-cycling" and recycling company, and Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company, which manufactures Natural American Spirit cigarettes. Volunteers collect cigarette butts, filters, ash, rolling paper and other cigarette-related trash -- everything except the cardboard carton -- and mail it, postage paid, to TerraCycle, which recycles the waste into industrial pallets, the company said in a statement. For Simpson, the initial interest was monetary. TerraCycle, which has Brigades for a variety of hard-to-recycle items, donates $1 for every pound of cigarette waste to Keep America Beautiful, a nonprofit that focuses on preventing litter and community improvement. "I thought (turning in the cigarette butts) would be a little extra income, but when I found out they're not giving any pay I got disappointed," he admitted. "But then I thought about it and I said, you know, it's for the environment, not my pocketbook, so I'm still doing it." The pack-a-day smoker started collecting cigarette butts in December and, with a little help from friends, he collected about 3,865 butts. After the initial satisfaction of turning in a shipment of cigarette waste, he started thinking bigger. "I'm trying to get some casinos involved because they have smoking areas and I thought, instead of just throwing them away, the casinos can just save them and I'll pick them up and be in charge of sending them to the company," he said. "They have smoking areas where you have to make sure the cigarette is put out and you throw it in a trash can. "I'm trying to get the country's frame of mind changed to, instead of putting them in a trash can, put them in a bucket." For more information about the Cigarette Waste Brigade, go to terracycle.com.