Apr 30, 2021 / Clean Cities

ButtRush by Nirit Datta

Cigarette butts are a dangerous and a rather unknown source of microplastics in oceans and heavy metal contamination in water contributes in a disastrous way to the deterioration of Planet Earth. Nirit Datta – India’s first Conservation Tech Evangelist launched Project Buttrush in April 2021 where he went on a trial run on 24th April in Kolkata to set a world record of most number of cigarette butts collected in 24 hours by an individual; to raise awareness about the toxicity of cigarette butts and the responsibility of the manufacturer towards the environment.

Nirit started at 2:00 AM and within 24 hours he alone had managed to collect 10,400 cigarette butts. His team of two had collected 23,000 cigarette butts from a single area in Salt Lake, Kolkata. The cigarette butts collected in this drive were sent to Waste Wheel, the waste recycling and collection partner who would be recycling them into useful products. Stay tuned with Y-East
for updates!