Recycled cigarette butts clothing. Seriously?!

Recycled cigarette butts clothing. Seriously?!








Chilean designer Alexandra Guerrero has been experimenting with what just may be the last thing anyone would think of as clothing material: cigarette butts. The most surprising thing about the initiative is that the resulting pieces made from butts blended with wool look promising--cool even.

But just how do you transform this gross trash into wearable textiles? See photos of the process and examples of the clothes in the extended.

Turning Dirty Cigarette Butts into Wool

The Mantis project began when designer Alexandra Guerrero was preparing a graduation thesis. Ever aware of the vast amount of cigarette butts everywhere in the city of Santiago de Chile, she started thinking about what could be done with them, and came up with a way to mix the tissue of the filter with natural wool to create a rustic-looking thread that could be knitted into all kinds of garments.

Of course, putting used cigarette butts in contact with your skin could not only be disgusting, but potentially dangerous. So before continuing on with her project, Guerrero asked environmental engineer Carolina Leiva to conduct a study to determine just how pure the material would be after cleaning the butts. The study concluded that the filters could achieve 95% purification, which, according to the designer, means that the clean butts are safe to use.

The purification process begins with the cigarette butts going through autoclaves. They are then washed in a polar solvent, go through autoclave again, rinsed and dried, and, finally, shredded to create a wool-like material. The resulting liquid is also being donated to be tested as a biological insecticide.











Clothing and Objects Made from Recycled Cigarette Butts

So far the designer has produced a vest, a poncho, a dress, and a hat, and even has mixed the material from the cigarette filters with soap to make an exfoliating product. The end-result textile contains 20% recycled-cigarette filter material, and Guerrero has recover 5,000 cigarette butts from the streets so far.

More info:Mantis-Mantis.blogspot and Veo Verde .

This is really great news for the sake of our environment and public health.  This is a very smart idea of Guerrero, i hope he will be successful in this endeavor.

I think it’s great that someone has come up with an idea for recycling cigarette butts. Just got back from Paris and I was rather disappointed with how dirty the streets were, especially the amount of cigarette butts everywhere. If we could find a way for teaching people to recycle the butts it would be great.

It’s very good idea and news.
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wow… a very innovative idea. this effort will keep all these butts off the streets at least!

this can be a very useful idea only if the cigarette butts can be collected from the root level. sweeping the streets for butts is not a very efficient idea after all!

i guess the effort is only on a test level. imagine the number of cigarette butts produced each day. if the project has a bright future, i am sure that there will be measures taken to collect butts at a mass level.

the liquid should actually have uses as pesticides, since it contains all the poisonous chemicals in it. a very interesting idea indeed!

very nice idea by guerrero! and the fabric in the picture looks just great!

they can look for a way by which the percentage of cigarette filter material can be higher in the final product. very nice start! keep it up!

a very good environment friendly project! keep it up!

Carolina Leiva should receive credits for this project to come to light… for her research work.

is anyone planning for branding the items? this should be a great product to sell on anyone’s hanger!

Very nice idea. innovative! hope to see similar projects in the future.

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