On September 14 Middleburg Town Council's "Go Green" Committee formally proposed that, in the interest of controlling an often-overlooked and singularly toxic form of litter on its streets, the Town adopt a Cigarette Recycling Program.

According to the Committee's 12-page report and proposal, "the number one item collected during Middleburg [weekly] street clean cleanups is cigarette butts."

During the August 19th cleanup, "Volunteers collected 2,850 cigarette butts, enough to fill a 12x12x6 shipping box."

Cigarette Butts: Unsightly and Dangerous

"In addition to being unsightly," the report continued, cigarette butts are dangerous."

The filters contain nicotine and "a mixture of up to 165 other toxic chemicals. If ingested by a baby or toddler the effect can be deadly. They are also ingested by pets and wildlife, and leach chemicals into the soil and water. One test revealed that just one butt, soaked in two gallons of water, produced enough toxins to kill a form of microscopic crustacean that "for the basic food source for small fish, tadpoles, salamanders, newts and aquatic insects" in "Northern Virginia ponds, slow-moving streams, and lakes."

Most filters aren't biodegradable. Most are made of plastic, not cotton. As one scientist cited in the report put it, "They never truly vanish."

The Plan

The Go Green Committee has recommended that Council:

1. Buy and place cigarette waste receptacles in strategic locations around Town and encourage local businesses to do the same on their property.

2. Register as a "strategic partner" with TerraCycle, an organization that provides free UPS shipping of cigarette waste to its recycling facilities, where it sterilizes, shreds and safely re-cycles each butt's constituent parts.

3. Begin an intense public information campaign to alert citizens to both the dangers of cigarette waste AND what they can do about it, and

4. Enforce the Town's already-existing anti-littering regulations.

Costs

The special cigarette receptacles recommended by the Committee range in price from $134 to $299 each.

The Town collects cigarette tax revenues of roughly $24,000 per year.

Go Green recommends that Council allocate 17.5% of that sum, roughly $4,200, to start the program. Included in that sum would be the purchase of 12 or 13 Town-owned receptacles.

In year two and thereafter, the Committee proposes using a tiny portion of each year's tax revenues to cover the program's very minimal ongoing costs which would also be partially offset by fines generated by stricter enforcement of existing littering laws.