Disposing garbage is still very common in Malaysia despite the many public campaigns against it. Environmental awareness is very poor here.Streets in the capital cities are clean but most of the others are dirty.We are profoundly influenced by our surroundings. If the area is clean, we take the innitiative to find a trash bin.
I would like to emphasise the after life of a cigarette. Cigarette butts are widely seen on the streets and in the drains. These will then flow into our river system and eventually to the sea. Toxins that contains in the cigarette filters is very harmful to the environment. According to a report by the Health Ministry that 33 million sticks of cigarettes are used daily.
A 30 year old University dropout came out with an idea to recycle these ciggarette butts into a money making venture by turning them into industrial plastic and compost fertilisers.Tom Szaky CEO of TerraCycle had this idea and made it into reality. Cigarette butts are collected by volunteers and is being sent to TerraCycle. A separation of the cigarette filter and tobacco residue takes place. Compost fertiliser is made from the tobacco residue meanwhile the filter is turned to industrial plastics products such as pallets and ashtrays due to its chemical content in the cigarette filter.
It takes between 1,000 and 2,000 butts to make a plastic ashtray, and more than 200,000 to make a garden chair. Not that there’s any shortage of supplies: 37 percent of the world’s litter is in cigarette butts, with up to a couple trillion thrown out yearly, Szaky said. - See more at: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/leisure/2013/01/29/recycling-entrepreneur-stubs-out-cigarette-garbage/#sthash.LTici4X0.dpuf
How about a venture like this in Malaysia? I'm very sure an initiative as such would create a positive impact in our country and indirectly reduce cigarette dispose significantly.
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