Dive Brief:
- According to Keep America Beautiful, cigarette butts are the most littered waste material in the world. To address this, Bridgestone Arena in Nashville has partnered with upcycling company TerraCycle and the Nashville Clean Water Project to collect and recycle cigarette butts left behind at the arena.
- Arena staff collect discarded cigarettes, pack them into boxes, then transport them to TerraCycle's recycling plant in New Jersey. TerraCycle will transform the butts into shipping pallets and compost the tobacco.
- The complex has collected 30 pounds, or 30,000 cigarette butts since the middle of December.
Dive Insight:
Keep America Beautiful estimates that cigarette butts are 38% of litter found on roadways. Businesses in the U.S. can sign up to become part of TerraCycle's Cigarette Waste Brigade to collect butts and ship them to Terracycle for processing.
TerraCycle focuses on recycling items that are not generally considered "recyclable" through curbside collections. The company creates new products from the waste materials it collects. In November, the city of Vancouver joined Terracycle in establishing the "Cigarette Waste Brigade", a program designed to keep butts off the sidewalks. Progressive holds a 19.9% stake in TerraCycle.
