Since June 2020, ecomégot has filed a European patent on its new recycling process for cigarette butts. Centralized in our premises near Bordeaux, the recycling workshop ecomégot is born!
What is our recycling process?
In view of the content of chemical components, particularly nicotine, butts are assigned the hazard classes HP6 and HP14 (acute toxicity and ecotoxicity). It is safer to treat it as hazardous waste. What we do for transportation and traceability.
Our cigarette butt recycling process does not use water or solvents. We consider that water is a scarce resource that must be preserved.
As JCVD said "in ten years there will be no more"!
We also avoid soil pollution by using no solvents.
The decontamination of cigarette butts is ensured by successive heating (to nearly 200°C) of the material which destroys the most toxic components (nicotine, phenol, pesticide). We have also launched different R&D projects to experiment new and more efficient ways to remove odor (such as supercritical CO2).
What happens to the cigarette butts?
In order for the ecomet solution to be effective, public awareness is a fundamental axis. We make citizens or employees aware of the impact of cigarette butts on the environment.
We do not see recycling as an end in itself, but rather as a lever to raise awareness and drive behavioral change among smokers and non-smokers.
We decided on a symbolic object. Cigarette butts are therefore recycled into awareness panels.
These signs are intended for communities, universities, parks, companies ... They highlight the impacts of cigarette butts on the environment and warn of the presence of a zero-butt space.
We are currently testing whether our recycled plastic material is compatible with 3D printing techniques.