{"id":3632,"date":"2015-12-02T19:00:17","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T19:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3632"},"modified":"2015-12-02T19:00:17","modified_gmt":"2015-12-02T19:00:17","slug":"butts-to-watts-turning-cigarette-butts-into-something-useful-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3632","title":{"rendered":"Butts to Watts: Turning cigarette butts into something useful — energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DSC01420\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While traveling through Northern California for the holidays, I saw an interesting sign at an Interstate 5 rest stop. It was a sign for “Butts to Watts.”<\/a><\/p>\n

I had never heard of this program. It’s some partnership between CalTrans and some outfit actually called “Cigarette Butt Services” to take used cigarette butts and incinerate them to create energy. So, smokers at rest stops all through California are being asked to drop their butts into these special bins rather than the regular trash bin. According to CalTrans, 44 million people stop at California rest stops every year, so that’s a lot of smokers stopping each year as well. (I like the little bars across the top to keep people from throwing stuff other than cigarette butts into the bin, which would make the whole program pretty useless.).<\/p>\n

\"DSC01419\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Apparently, cigarette butts create a lot of BTUs and are considered a high-yield material for incineration plants. The program also seeks to get millions of pounds of cigarette butts out of landfills.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, while trying to do a bit of research on energy from cigarette butts, there is another way being proposed to get energy out of this source of trash. Korean scientists <\/a>have found that the carbon\u00a0material in cigarette butts (yeah, cigarette butts may look like they’re made out of cotton, but they’re actually mostly made out of plastic), \u00a0in cigarette butts could be cleaned and recycled as a medium for energy storage, like a battery. This material outperforms<\/a> a lot of other common energy storage materials.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While traveling through Northern California for the holidays, I saw an interesting sign at an Interstate 5 rest stop. It was a sign for “Butts to Watts.” I had never heard of this program. It’s some partnership between CalTrans and some outfit actually called “Cigarette Butt Services” to take used cigarette butts and incinerate them … Continue reading Butts to Watts: Turning cigarette butts into something useful — energy<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[744,324,743],"tags":[745,673],"class_list":["post-3632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-caltrans","category-cigarette-butts","category-cigarette-waste","tag-butts-to-watts","tag-cigarette-butts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/DSC01420.jpg?fit=2800%2C2100&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4hpEa-WA","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4183,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=4183","url_meta":{"origin":3632,"position":0},"title":"Cigarette butts the No. 1 cause of beach pollution","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"September 7, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"This is why I have ZERO sympathy for smokers complaining about beach smoking bans. They really have no one to blame but themselves for smoking being banned on beaches. Here is an NBC story about the latest campaign to ban plastic straws. There's a good argument for banning plastic straws,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "cigarette butts"","block_context":{"text":"cigarette butts","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=324"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180824-oregon-cigarette-cleanup-al-1646_c1ffc2ed87fd0f3222c4f11621d4da7b.fit-2000w.jpg?fit=1200%2C770&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180824-oregon-cigarette-cleanup-al-1646_c1ffc2ed87fd0f3222c4f11621d4da7b.fit-2000w.jpg?fit=1200%2C770&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180824-oregon-cigarette-cleanup-al-1646_c1ffc2ed87fd0f3222c4f11621d4da7b.fit-2000w.jpg?fit=1200%2C770&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180824-oregon-cigarette-cleanup-al-1646_c1ffc2ed87fd0f3222c4f11621d4da7b.fit-2000w.jpg?fit=1200%2C770&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180824-oregon-cigarette-cleanup-al-1646_c1ffc2ed87fd0f3222c4f11621d4da7b.fit-2000w.jpg?fit=1200%2C770&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3580,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3580","url_meta":{"origin":3632,"position":1},"title":"Water wheel removes 4 million cigarette butts from Baltimore Harbor","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"October 22, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Something that doesn't get talked a lot about the scourge of tobacco is the littering and pollution problem caused by millions upon millions of cigarette butts being tossed aside into the environment. 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Yeah, those little tiny\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Baltimore"","block_context":{"text":"Baltimore","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=732"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/waterwheelimage1-1.jpg?fit=730%2C448&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/waterwheelimage1-1.jpg?fit=730%2C448&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/waterwheelimage1-1.jpg?fit=730%2C448&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/waterwheelimage1-1.jpg?fit=730%2C448&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3433,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3433","url_meta":{"origin":3632,"position":2},"title":"Cigarettes not just bad for your health, they’re bad for the environment","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"August 17, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Something that gets overlooked a lot about cigarettes -- their effect on the environment. 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The state earlier this year banned smoking in its state parks, and it considering adding state beaches to that ban (Almost all of Oregon's beaches are open and free to the public). 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