Cigarette Recycling in Canada: TerraCycle’s Community Impact
What does it mean when communities come together to recycle the world’s most littered item?
Cigarette butts are the most littered item on the planet. So what? You may be asking yourself why recycling matters and for a material so small, why you should care. For starters, cigarettes are the most littered item in Canada, too, and have a huge impact on the environment.
An estimated 5 million people smoke daily across Canada, consuming an average of 13 cigarettes per day. That’s about 65 million cigarettes consumed daily, nearly 24 BILLION annually!
Cigarette butts picked up during A Greener Future’s 2021 Butt Blitz.
Where are all these cigarettes coming from?
Businesses, community organizations, and households are where cigarette butts are most often aggregated. TerraCycle®, the company out to recycle the non-recyclable, collects cigarettes from all of these locations, as well as municipalities, college campuses, and many other places, too!
The UNSMOKE Cigarette Recycling Program is a unique opportunity to make a positive impact on our planet by recycling discarded butts at home, and/or collecting cigarette litter in the community. It’s free, raises money for charity, and keeps these plastics out of landfills and waterways.
So far, TerraCycle has recycled about 157 million cigarettes from over 5,000 people in Canada!
Cigarette butts littered on the streets of Canada.
Imagine what we could do if we amplified our efforts by 10... 100... 1,000... What could we accomplish if we came together with a common goal? In the United States, TerraCycle is on a mission to recycle 500 million cigarettes by 2025! How many cigarettes can this community recycle together?
Toronto, Montréal, and Vancouver currently have the highest concentration of locations recycling cigarettes in Canada! Mississauga, Calgary, and Ottawa are not far behind with other notable cities including Hamilton, Edmonton, Québec, and Sherbrooke.
This is only the beginning! We have a number of program partners across the region that have taken recycling to the next level and are leading the way towards a more sustainable Canada. Sollicité (previously SAESEM), Surfrider Pacific Rim, Brain Garden, A Greener Future, MAGNA, Honda Canada Manufacturing, and EcoSuperior Environmental Programs are a handful of the recycling rock stars ahead of the game tackling cigarette litter nationwide. A Greener Future has collected over 600,000 during this year’s Butt Blitz!
Cigarette butts picked up by a 2021 Butt Blitz volunteer.
Climate anxiety is real and getting into the sustainability game can be overwhelming and confusing. Am I doing enough? Am I doing too little? Ultimately, it’s about how we evolve together. Small changes make huge impacts and that applies to our homes, our communities, our countries, and our world. So start small with recycling those butts, dream big toward a cleaner, greener future, and scale conscientiously by taking action at your business and in your community.
IF YOU DON'T SMOKE, DON'T START
Need help? Who doesn’t! When we collaborate, magical things happen. Please contact litter@terracycle.com for more information on setting up a cigarette recycling program with TerraCycle, building infrastructure, and engaging your community!
About the Author
The blog post was written by Caroline Coffee, Strategic Outreach at TerraCycle ~
After working in Compliance and Business Analytics in the financial sector, Caroline made her passion to work for a purpose-driven company a reality, starting a career in sustainability at TerraCycle. Caroline specializes in building community infrastructure for National Recycling Programs across the US and Canada! Focused on unique categories of waste, like cigarette butts and disposable razors, Caroline helps businesses, cities, and nonprofits engage in sustainable initiatives while educating communities on the importance of waste elimination and recycling.
About Terracycle
TerraCycle® is Eliminating the Idea of Waste® by recycling the "non-recyclable." Whether it's coffee capsules from your home, pens from a school, or plastic gloves from a manufacturing facility, TerraCycle can collect and recycle almost any form of waste. We partner with individual collectors, as well as major consumer product companies, retailers, manufacturers, municipalities, and small businesses across 20 different countries. With your help, we are able to divert millions of pounds of waste from landfills and incinerators each month. Want to learn more? Click here!
Strategic Outreach, TerraCycle