Cigarette Butt Bricks

Several trillion cigarettes are produced worldwide annually, resulting in tonnes of cigarette butt waste. Billions of cigarette butts (CBs) were discarded by smokers directly into the environment. It is known that CBs are one of the environmental pollution. Cigarette butts accumulate in the environment due to the poor biodegradability of the cellulose acetate filters that could cause contamination on the street, sidewalks, waterways, beaches and public areas. Due to its small size but large in volume, CBs cannot be collected easily and most of it will be disposed directly to the landfill. Moreover, there is no easy mechanism to ensure the separation of the chemicals trap inside the CBs which is toxic to the environment Results from a study on recycling cigarette butts into fired clay bricks are presented. In this study, different percentages of CBs (0%, 2.5% and 5.0%) were incorporated into fired clay brick. The physico-mechanical properties of manufactured bricks including compressive strength, flexural strength, density, water absorption and thermal conductivity are discussed. The compressive strength of bricks decreased according to the percentage of cigarette butts included in the mix. The results also show that the mixing time has a considerable effect on the properties of the fired clay bricks tested. It was concluded that cigarette butts can be regarded as a potential addition to the raw materials used in the manufacture of lightweight fired bricks and, furthermore, that recycling cigarette butts in bricks is a very practical and potentially significant contribution in terms of a sustainable solution to one of the serious environmental pollution problems in the world.