From Cigarette Stubs to.. Fluffy Toys!

In India, cigarette butts – the world’s most discarded waste item – are being recycled into stuffing for soft toys and pillows.

“We started with 10 grams (of fiber per day) and now we are doing 1,000 kilograms… Annually we are able to recycle millions of cigarette butts,” says entrepreneur and owner of the factory, Naman Gupta.

Gupta’s company – Code Effort – has thus far recycled over 300 million cigarette butts from the streets of India. Cigarette stubs’ non-biodegradable filter fibers break down into microplastics with the potential to harm marine life and birds, so recycling them is good news for nature (and for children!). Code Effort is only one company among others searching for innovative recycling solutions for cigarette butts.