New program recycles cigarette butts

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — A new recycling program aims to reduce the number of cigarettes that end up in our waterways, on our streets, and in our landfill.

Keep New Hanover Beautiful recently partnered with the City of Wilmington to recycle butts.

Discarded cigarette butts (Photo: Keep New Hanover Beautiful)

“When Keep New Hanover Beautiful approached me about this program, I was quite receptive to the idea of redirecting cigarettes from the landfill,” said David Ingram, City of Wilmington Solid Waste Manager.

The city has installed 110 new cigarette butt disposal canisters in and around Wilmington hoping to catch the eye of smokers who may have become accustomed to tossing them to the curb. The city collects the discarded butts, and Keep New Hanover Beautiful volunteers mail them to TerraCycle, a free waste-collection and recycling facility.

TerraCycle separates and melts parts of the cigarettes and packaging into rigid plastic that is repurposed into industrial products such as plastic pallets and building materials. The ash and tobacco are then composted in a specialized process, according to TerraCycle’s website.

“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.