A small mountain of extinguished cigarettes, stuffed in clear sealed plastic bags, piled up Thursday afternoon in the recycling center deep inside Foxwoods Resort Casino, where the public isn’t allowed.

Cigarette butts are one of the most common kinds of litter, found everywhere from land to waterways. The tobacco and paper in them will break down, so those can be composted.

Cigarette butts are one of the most common kinds of litter, found everywhere from land to waterways. The tobacco and paper in them will break down, so those can be composted.

In recent times, recycling has practically become a household term. Even in school, children are being educated about the need to recycle, conserve and preserve. However, even with this increased awareness, statistics show that the U.S. alone produces approximately 230 million tons of waste every year, and not even half of it makes it to the recycling stage.

As much as the forces of public health have tried to change it, more than one in five Maine adults still smokes. And only about 10 percent of smokers’ cigarette butts find their way into appropriate receptacles, according to the nonprofit Keep America Beautiful.

Once the box is full, it is shipped free of charge to the New Jersey-based TerraCycle, which will use the tobacco to make compost and turn the plastic filters in the butts to pellets for use producing items such as park benches, shipping pallets and railroad ties.

That is why Jonathan Neracher has teamed up with Facilities Services as well as TerraCycle in an effort to minimize cigarette butt waste on campus.

TerraCycle collects cigarette waste at over 6,000 locations, resulting in the diversion of 23.4 million cigarette butts from landfills. In November 2013, the sustainability company launched the "Cigarette Waste Brigade" in Vancouver, Canada - its first butt recycling program. Since then, the project has expanded to include other cities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TEa7NTJQW4

TerraCycle takes the waste collected from these receptacles and produces a variety of industrial products, such as plastics pallets, and any remaining tobacco is actually recycled as compost.