Meet the man turning cigarette butts into everyday products

Brut India

Are cigarette butt toys safe for children? Naman Gupta explains the process and addresses all the concerns.

Transcript

00:00This panda is made out of approximately 5,000 recycled cigarette butts.

00:05Let's dive into the process and see how did it transform into this.

00:14So hi, Naman.

00:15Hi, how are you?

00:16I'm good, how are you?

00:17All good.

00:18What is this place and what are we doing here?

00:20So I welcome you to Code Effort Private Limited,

00:22where we are recycling cigarette butts and manufacturing multiple products.

00:26Here we will show you the entire process of how we are recycling cigarette butts.

00:30And then I'll take you to another plot where we will meet our rural women artisans

00:35who will show how they are making the finished product.

00:38We generally get the cigarette butts from across 250 districts in India right now.

00:43Daily collection is approximately 6 to 7 million cigarette butts.

00:48And we get the raw materials in the bags like these.

00:51And these are the normal cigarette butts.

00:55And after we get this raw material, we will process it here.

00:58And we will recycle all the three components, paper, tobacco, as well as the filter.

01:04That is paper.

01:05That is paper.

01:06And this is filter.

01:07Yes, the little strands that you can see, this is all tobacco.

01:11Oh, this.

01:12Yes.

01:13It looks very similar to cotton, but this is fibre.

01:16This is the tobacco leftover.

01:19So we don't throw this.

01:21We will process this as well.

01:23This process is also done here.

01:24What is made from this and what is made from this?

01:26This is the compost powder.

01:28Because if we throw it, we can't solve one environmental problem,

01:34we cannot have multiple problems.

01:37This is ready as well.

01:38This is the final, this is compost.

01:41So this bag has only fibre?

01:43Yes, this is just the fibre after separating.

01:46So we don't distinguish as per the brand.

01:50Any brand is perfect for us.

01:55Because all of them have the same fibre,

01:57which is generally called cellulose acetate, scientifically.

02:03First put the fibres into this machine.

02:06This machine will cut the fibres into smaller parts.

02:09And bring the filter type material to somewhat looking like cotton or fibre.

02:27Once the cutting is done, we will take out the fibres and put it into a drum,

02:32where we will put our biodegradable and certified chemicals

02:38to treat or we can say recycle them.

02:40We have devised a combination of two ingredients.

02:45One of the ingredients is to detoxify and remove all the effluents that the filter traps.

02:52And the second composition is to enhance the colour of the fibres

02:58to bring it to the closest of the natural fibre colour.

03:02So this is all biodegradable, skin friendly.

03:05We will just add the chemical and leave it for 24 hours.

03:09So that the chemical can get mixed thoroughly with the fibres

03:15and remove all the effluents that the filter has trapped.

03:21And once that is complete, we will take out the treated fibres

03:25and put it into this machine, which is a dryer,

03:29so that we can remove the excess water into this.

03:35And once this process is complete, we will put into the final stage,

03:40which is the carding.

03:42So here we will put the dried fibres, recycled fibres,

03:46so that the fibre can be fluffed up and brought to a better enhanced quality.

03:56So once the entire recycling process is complete

04:00and we get this enhanced quality recycled fibre,

04:05we will send all the batches to government approved labs

04:09for testing and safety purposes.

04:11Once the results are out and once the lab says that it is safe to use,

04:15then we will give this to our rural women artisans to make sustainable merchandise.

04:20And also we have tied up with a lot of mills to make commercially viable products

04:25such as paper, textiles and mannequins.

04:28So here we have all the rural women artisans who help us in making all the products.

04:33And from recycled cigarette butts we are making,

04:36we initially started with toys and keychains,

04:39where we were just using the fibres as stuffing,

04:42but right now currently making the textiles, paper as well as the mannequins.

04:47So in one textile, one metre, we need at least 300 to 400 pieces

04:52of cigarette fibres to make one metre of textile.

04:56Plus in the paper, these are the machine made papers

05:00that we are making from the recycled fibres.

05:03So to make 500 sheets, we need around 8000 pieces of cigarette fibres.

05:08In the toys like these, we need around 100 to 120 pieces of cigarette butt fibres.

05:15And in the keychains, like keychains are a bit smaller piece,

05:19so in keychains we need around 10 to 15 pieces.

05:23Plus in the mannequin, we need around 8 to 10,000 pieces

05:28to make one piece of the half body mannequin.

05:37Employee safety is there.

05:39We do regular lab testing for each and every batch,

05:42so that we can ensure that whatever recycled material is coming from the process

05:48is completely safe to use and fit to use for the children, for adults,

05:53teenagers as well as medium and old age people.

05:58Our company code effort is completely certified.

06:02We have ISO 9001, which ensures that the entire product is completely safe to use.

06:10We are ISO 14001, which ensures that the process that we are following

06:15to recycle cigarette butts is environmentally safe

06:18and not just for our valuable customers who are procuring our products.

06:22We ensure that the well-being and the occupational health parameter is also not compromised.

06:28So we have gone beyond that and we are ISO 45001,

06:33which ensures that the people who are handling the waste are also safe

06:40and they are taken care of in case there is some mishap.

06:44The recycled paper, we sell it in a ream of 500 sheets in A4 size format.

06:49The reams cost around Rs. 200.

06:52Handwoven textile varies from Rs. 500 per meter and goes up to Rs. 1000 per meter.

06:58Toys are having multiple designs and sizes.

07:01So toy also ranges from Rs. 100 and goes up to Rs. 3000 per piece.

Category

Transcript

Recommended