Recycling binned cigarettes

The City of Melbourne is recycling millions of cigarette butts into industrial products. 

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle said the council had collected 1.2 million binned cigarettes from busy CBD locations, universities and hospitals.

The cigarette butts collected will be made into practical items such as shopping pallets and plastic furniture.

“We collect more than 200,000 cigarette butts each week from 367 cigarette butt bins across the city: litter that may otherwise end up being washed down drains and into the Yarra River,” Cr Doyle said

A survey shows 10,500 cigarettes are being littered on the ground every day.

The council said it spent $13 million on collection and disposal each year.

The City of Melbourne placed a glass box filled with 200,000 cigarette butts on at Queensbridge Square on July 24 to show the environmental impacts of littering cigarettes.

Cr Cathy Oke, council’s environmental portfolio chair, said Melbourne was the first in Victoria to recycle cigarette waste.

“We hope this project will motivate smokers to place their cigarette butts in one of the butt bins located around the CBD.”