You're probably familiar with getting cash for turning in recyclables like bottles, cans, and some plastics, but what about cigarette butts? Think about it, cigarette filters are made of plastic (cellulose acetate) that currently isn't able to be turned in to be recycled and definitely isn't biodegradable. With over 176 million pounds of cigarette butts littered every year in the US alone, that's a lot of butts ending up in landfills and littering our beaches and public spaces.
But one group has set out to make a difference.
RippleLife is a grassroots project offering the first ever cigarette butt trade-in, Butt Redemption Value (BRV), to incentivize the collection of cigarette butts. Basically, you collect cigarette butts and they give you cash for them, just like you'd do with bottles, cans, and other recyclables.
"What are they going to do with all of them?" you're probably asking yourself. They're currently trying to find ways to repurpose them to give them "a better second life."
This article appears in Jan 20-26, 2011.