Green

Recycling Cigarette Butts

Recycling is generally all about garbage, glass bottles, newspapers and so on and so forth. A new study however talks about expanding on the practice of recycling miniscule items such as cigarette butts.

Termed as ‘tiny trash’, also cited in the report as an item of garbage found almost anywhere and everywhere – the study outlines ways and means of recycling cigarette butts. Reusing cigarette butts can be done to prevent the corrosion of steel, which incidentally causes big time oil producers an annual sum of a few million dollars. The study’s findings are featured in the ACS’ Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research.

The study was carried out by a team headed by Jun Zhao. In their report they state that annually, around 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are found amongst the trash. Cigarette butts are an eyesore, but other studies indicate even more. Cigarette butts also contain various toxic materials that are quite harmful towards the environment. Cigarette butts thrown into rivers and lakes are quite likely to kill fish as well. Recycling these cigarette butts is one fabulous way of solving these problems – and finding a practical use for it is an act that must be applauded.

The study states that cigarette butts when put in water and then applied onto N80 steel which is used fairly commonly in the oil industry, is a fabulous method of protecting it from corrosion, even under harsh weather conditions. This new find will mean that oil producers will save a lot of money spent otherwise on damages caused by corrosion, and even due to interruptions caused in the production cycle.