Plan to save tobacco products rubbish from tip

Japan Tobacco International is backing an initiative aimed at recycling the UK’s cigarette butts into plastic products, according to a BT story.

The initiative will allow smokers to prevent some of the billions of non-biodegradable butts and other cigarette waste from ending up in landfill or as litter, the recycling company behind the scheme, TerraCycle, said.

The ‘Cigarette Waste Brigade’ allows groups, workplaces, councils and individual adults to collect butts, ash, used and unused filters, rolling paper, inner foil packaging and outer plastic packaging, and send them for recycling using free shipping labels.

Collected cigarette waste will be turned into plastic delivery pallets, with tobacco and paper being composted.

Smoking related rubbish is said to be the most common form of litter, found at 73 percent of sites surveyed by anti-litter campaigners. It makes up 35 percent of the items of waste that have been dropped.