Recycling program turns cigarette butts into plastic

WILMINGTON, NC (WECT) - Keep New Hanover Beautiful has partnered with the City of Wilmington to implement a cigarette butt recycling program.

While smoking has decreased in America, cigarette butts remain the most littered item across the globe.

The goal of this program is to divert some of this waste from waterways, streets and landfills. The city has installed 110 new cigarette butt disposal canisters in and around Wilmington.

The discarded butts are mailed to TerraCycle, a free waste and recycling facility, that separates and melts parts of the cigarettes into rigid plastic. This plastic is repurposed into industrial products like pallets and building materials.

"During our monthly clean-ups, we saw we had a problem with the amount of cigarette butts littered around Wilmington, so we looked into options to divert this litter from our environment and our landfill," said Dick Brightman of Keep New Hanover Beautiful.

At the current collection rate, the Keep New Hanover Beautiful Cigarette Litter Recycling Campaign expects to recycle more than 2,000 pounds of cigarettes within the first year.

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