We have all seen someone flick a cigarette butt out a car window or drop a butt on the street, but did you know cigarettes butts make up 32% of all items littered in the United States?
From KDB’s most recent installation of 5 receptacles in June 2018, Quakertown Park has experienced a 66% decrease in cigarette litter. KDB also held 5 butt bucket workshops creating DIY receptacles for outside residences and gave away 400 car and 200 pocket ashtrays.
In addition to reduction efforts, KDB volunteers have cleaned up 112,300 cigarette butts from Downtown Denton, the Fry St. Area, and Quakertown Park in the last year. If these butts were put end to end, they would stretch 1.77 miles!
While cigarette butts were once made of natural materials, they are now manufactured cellulose acetate – plastic! This compound is the same plastic material that frames your sunglasses and builds park benches and takes years to decompose. To recycle the butts, KDB sends all cigarette litter collected to Terracycle.
Want to help pick-up butts or host a butt bucket workshop? Email volunteer@kdb.org to join in KDB’s next Cigarette Litter Cleanup (must be 18+ years of age to volunteer for this program).
Source: City of Denton