TerraCycle has launched a free program to collect and recycle cigarette waste in Canada, including filters, foil and plastic packaging. The “upcycling” company, which takes tough-to-recycle packaging and turns it into affordable products, will use cigarette waste to make plastic pallets for industry, reducing the need to use wood or virgin plastic. Organic material – the paper and remaining tobacco – will be composted.

Toronto-based recycler TerraCycle has launched the “first national collection and recycling program for cigarette waste.” Participation in the Cigarette Waste Brigade program is free – thanks to tobacco-industry sponsorship – and covers all types of cigarette waste except the (already widely recyclable) cardboard boxes. Participants amass filters and cigrettes’ aluminum and plastic packaging in plastic bags, and when enough waste is collected, they log into their account and print a free prepaid UPS shipping label to send it off for recycling. Contrary to popular belief, cigarette butts are non-biodegradable and do not break down quickly. Waste collected through the Waste Brigade program will be recycled into plastic pallets for industrial use. www.terracycle.ca

EMC News - A world leader in recycling hard-to-recycle waste, ranging from food and beverage packaging to hospital waste, TerraCycle takes its goal of outsmarting waste one step further with another environmental breakthrough: the launch of a free program to collect and recycle cigarette waste in Canada.

July 9, 2012 - TerraCycle, a world leader in recycling hard-to-recycle waste, ranging from food and beverage packaging to hospital waste, has taken its goal of "outsmarting waste" one step further with the launch of a free program to collect and recycle cigarette waste in Canada. The Cigarette Waste Brigade program – in partnership with Canada’s largest tobacco manufacturer – will divert used cigarette butts, along with cigarette foil and plastic packaging waste, from landfills.

Cigarette butts are often discarded without thought, but thanks to a unique program that tiny plastic filter could have a new lease on inanimate life as a plastic pallet in a factory. The new innovative eco-program designed by TerraCycle Canada is called Cigarette Waste Brigade. The smoker simply collects all parts of the extinguished cigarette, including the filter, outer plastic packaging, inner foil packaging and rolling paper – even the remaining ash – then packages it all up and mails it to TerraCycle. As of June 25, 2012 more than 5,700 units have been collected from 81 different locations, according to company officials.

EMC news - A world leader in recycling hard-to-recycle waste, ranging from food and beverage packaging to hospital waste, TerraCycle takes its goal of outsmarting waste one step further with another environmental breakthrough: the launch of a free program to collect and recycle cigarette waste in Canada. The Cigarette Waste Brigade program will divert used cigarette butts from landfills, along with cigarette foil and plastic packaging waste. Cigarette filters were the number one item recovered during the annual Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup in 2011, with 351,238 collected. Contrary to popular belief, cigarette butts are non-biodegradable and do not break down quickly. This program will make this pervasive waste easily recyclable for the first time.

TerraCycle and Canada's largest tobacco manufacturer have launched a free program to collect and recycle cigarette waste. The Cigarette Waste Brigade program will divert used cigarette butts, along with cigarette foil and plastic packaging waste, from landfills.

A New Jersey-­‐based recycling firm is putting Canadian butts to work as it looks to turn discarded cigarette waste into industrial use pallets. TerraCycle, a firm that reuses and reprocesses hard-to-recycle waste, has launched its Cigarette Waste Brigade program, which diverts cigarette butts—along  with plastic and foil cigarette packaging—from landfills and uses them to make pallets for industrial shipping. “I’m personally very excited about cigarette butts because it’s a landmark waste stream,” said TerraCycle founder Tom Szaky. “It’s a massive litter issue.”

Everyone check out these links (below) about Terracycle and what they really do with the cigarette waste (butts). Cigarette waste (butts) is not biodegradable and takes up to 12 years to breakdown. 8,000 tonnes of cigarette butts are dropped by Canadian each year, the majority within 10 feet of an ashtray.

They're everywhere -- so much a part of the landscape that you may have to focus for a moment to even notice them. Trillions of cigarette butts are flicked and stomped to the ground each year, often by people who would never think of themselves as littering. Contrary to popular belief, cigarette filters are not biodegradable. They're made from cellulose acetate, a plastic that absorbs tobacco "tar" and eventually breaks down in the environment, but never loses its toxicity and can poison essential links int he aquatic food chain.