We aim to recycle 10% of Europe’s cigarette butts by 2030.

A problem-Solving plastic

Our Plastic displaces virgin plastic and simultaneously prevents large amounts of toxic litter from entering the ocean. A single pair of sunglasses made from our plastic saves 2.6 million litres of water from contamination. That’s an entire Olympic swimming pool.

The Issue

In early 2019, we began to research the enormous scale of the cigarette waste problem and realised that if we could figure out a way to recycle cigarette butts, we could potentially solve one of the worlds worst litter problems.

The streets, parks and beaches of our home city, Dublin, are littered with cigarette butts. They also poison trillions of litres of seawater each year and release thousands of tonnes of CO2 and methane into the atmosphere. By virtue of the fact that we live on a small island with a huge culture of fishing and surfing, we have a natural affinity for the ocean. Eventually, we managed to convert a batch of cigarette butts into plastic.

Our Solution..

Collection

The cigarette butts are collected through the installation of receptacles in college campuses, city bins, bars and social venues.

Recycling

The cigarette butts are recycled through our unique process into clean cellulose acetate pellets.

Moulding

We sell our recycled cellulose acetate pellets to plastic manufacturers who injection mould them into high-quality consumer items.

Our Reasons..

Displace petroleum

Our product displaces petroleum plastic. In fact, in the next five years we plan to replace over 4,400 tonnes of it annually with recycled cellulose acetate.

Capture CO2

The carbon from the emissions of cigarette butts that would have otherwise decomposed in landfill or have been burned in incinerators are captured by reusing the butts in our products.

Save Trees

We project that within five years we will be able to save 75,000 trees that would otherwise have been used to make first-hand cellulose acetate.

Establish

We aim to establish a network of small recycling facilities in urban centres across Europe to process the thousands of tonnes of toxic cigarette waste produced every year.

Recycle

We aim to be recycling at least 10% of Europe’s cigarette waste. The more that we expand, the more cigarette butts will be converted from obsolete waste into valuable consumer items.

Produce

We aim to produce 4,400 tonnes of high grade recycled plastic per year. This will protect the environment from toxic cigarette waste and will displace thousands of tonnes of petroleum plastic.