A Brazilian club found a great way to recycle cigarette ends. The solution is ecological and practical, above all it has a beneficial purpose. We are in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Here, “Lar Mar” is the meeting place for surfers.
“Lar Mar” is located in the Pinheiros district and has a bar, a shop and an event room open to the public. It is the ideal location for parties, concerts, shows and exhibitions. The bar serves food, cocktails and other drinks. The shop, on the other hand, sells sportswear and sport gadgets. It is therefore a place that offers a complete experience for all lovers of the sea, and surfing in particular.
In addition to all this, however, the managers now want to give an extra service that has both an ecological and beneficial purpose. They have in fact decided to collect cigarette ends to recycle them and transform them into surfboards. The project is called “Bitucas+Surf” and is inspired by that of the American designer Taylor Lane. With “The Cigarette SurfBoard” he created the first surfboard made with recycled cigarettes, winning several awards for sustainability in the USA.
In turn, the owners of “Lar Mar” want to create surfboards with recycled cigarette butts for children in need. They will work with Neco Carbone, an artisan surfing company associated with the club, to create the boards. For every 3,000 recycled cigarette butts, one board will be built. Customers and patrons can therefore leave their butts in the special containers provided by “La Mar”. In this way they will save the environment and make a child happy. The ecological surfboards will be delivered to surf schools for needy children in Santos, a town on the coast of São Paulo.
This is without doubt a truly brilliant and useful idea. It is part of the new trends that are taking hold all over the world to recycle waste and scrap to make nifty – and even valuable – objects. Think for example of the elegant travel bags made with plastic from the oceans.
Recycling cigarette ends is an extremely necessary activity since they are creating very serious pollution problems. In fact, of the 5.4 billion cigarettes produced every year, about two thirds of them end up dispersed at sea. As a result, they release the harmful substances they contain into the environment. It is therefore essential to limit their release into the environment.