Recycle cigarette butts into anti-rust solution?

An article in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research proposes to solve the problem of disposing of the 4.5 trillion (highly toxic) cigarette butts that find their way into the environment every year by recycling them into a rust-prevention treatment for oil industry applications:

The scientists showed that extracts of cigarette butts in water, applied to a type of steel (N80) widely used in the oil industry, protected the steel from rusting even under the harsh conditions, preventing costly damage and interruptions in oil production. They identified nine chemicals in the extracts, including nicotine, which appear to be responsible for this anti-corrosion effect.

Recycling 'Tiny Trash' -- Cigarette Butts

(Image: 09-feb-24, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from sashafatcat's photostream)

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I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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martianbeauty

Fantastic ! One toxic industry helps another!
martianbeauty

Fantastic ! One toxic industry helps another!
martianbeauty

Fantastic ! One toxic industry helps another!
Anonymous

this is why i smoke a pipe, good for you to boot, well better for you than a mc donalds cheeseburger, and very little risk of lung cancer, no addicting and deadly additives just relaxing puffing,
dculberson

I had a bite of food in my mouth when I saw this picture. My reaction was pretty visceral, and it was difficult to swallow. Yikes.
freshacconci

The 4.5 trillion figure is startling. It reminds me of one of the reasons I left Greenpeace in the early 90s. I used to canvas for them, going door-to-door raising funds. It may not surprise you, but most Greenpeace members that I knew at that time were smokers. I recall pulling into one subdivision and we all got out of the car and everyone lit up and smoked, tossing the butts onto the street. One family was watching us from their window, for obvious reasons (you know, the look environmentalists tend to have). This of course was the house I had to begin at. My job was to convince them to donate money to help us help the environment.
michael holloway

Nicotien is the new wonder chemical!

With everyone trying to save themselves from the coming apocalypse by blaming tobacco, nicotine is now part of the medical phalanx of chemical solutions to our problems, al a the nicotine patch.

Now a rust inhibitor, and as angusm says, nicotine might also be a pesticide.

With all thew new demand, pretty soon tobbacco will be too expensive to make into cigarettes! There’ll be criminal cigarette butt gangs warring over prime street corners near bus stops and out side bars. Fancy sports cars will be broken into, the ash trays ripped from their consoles leaving the Blaupunkt stereo system behind because it’s worthless compared to the long butts snuffed out by the ‘high end user’.

:)
Anonymous

No, they won’t use cigarette butts. They’ll just keep on pitching them on the ground. The real profit is in synthesizing those compounds. An entire factory to make virgin toxic goo without those pesky papers and filters. Better living through chemistry.

One cigarette butt is enough to either severely deform developing fish or outright kill them.

Maybe they could inject it into the gulf oil spill…
michael holloway

Chong,

Cheech here, Hey man… don’t throw those away man.
Mitch

There used to be a guy around here who always kept a supply of cigarette butts in a container taped to his bicycle handlebars.

There’s probably no cost effective way to to collect them for any kind of reuse, except maybe from bars in backward places that still allow indoor smoking.

I just wish the police would fine people for tossing them on the ground. Every winter by one particular bar there is a cigarette butt covered snow pile with the snow turned brown by the tar that makes me gag when I walk by it.
- octopod
  
  a lot of street people round here smoke discarded cigarette butts. so leave a longer stub, it’s healthier for you, and it’s like giving a dime to someone less fortunate than yourself.
gastronaut

If only I smoked more- then my lungs wouldn’t always be full of rust and insects.
JoshP

Aiight,
I no i’m not going to win friends and influence people here, but… I switched smoking major brand cigarettes years ago to filtered cigars. The reason was that without cigarettes I was physically able to be far more athletic. I know my risk of future cancers etc. is still cause for both private and tertiary public concern.
The reason for this post is that all cigarette butts are not equal, at least back in my Camel days. Some butts are made of synthetics, some butts are made of cotton fiber. You can run the gamut. For a while I thought legislation was on the books to get big Cancer to start listing ingredients, which I think is fair, so fair that it may keep them from past or future liability.
Now, cotton butts will probably compost with little if any residual chemical effects to the soil it is used on. If tobacco was some kind of plant form virus that killed other vegetation, wouldn’t we see that from nascent tobacco production? Something that always scared me about certain cigarettes were these weird, non-organic filters.
I think this bears study. My opinion. Perhaps by a field crew of slappy boxing panda and bearsharktopi.
george57l

Aaah – rusty-lung – the scourge of the pre-smoking generations. You see? Smoking cures things.
Scuba SM

Hmm. Cigarette butts in water prevents rust on the type of steel used in the oil industry….

If the oil companies allowed smoking on their rigs, they could get free rust proofing! It’s win-win!
hadlock

I have enough trouble getting my roommate to put their cigarette butts in the ashtray and not in the lawn. If we’re going to perpetuate the smoking habit, can we at least teach the next generation to use a fucking ashtray? Is that so much to ask?
thesalamiking

Let’s use the anti-rusting chemical on drinking water pipes! (The scientist in question is from china, so it’s conceivable that they might try it)
Chong

What about if I smoke weed?
Can they use the roaches?
rorschachian

It seems like a cigarette butt deposit system could be formed where all cigarettes have an extra 5 cent tax per cigarette ($1.00 per pack or so I guess) that can be entirely reclaimed if the smoker brings back their cigarette butts.

This would probably stop the littering, and to cover those that still littered there would be an incentive for other people to collect the butts to turn in for money. I think this might cut down the number of littered cigarette butts enormously, and whoever collects the butts could then sell them to a recycling company using them for this story’s purpose.

Of course, smokers who litter should also face a $1000 fine and 40 hours of community service. I decided that after cleaning up litter along the side of some highways.
ablebody

hang on. am i right in drawing the conclusion that nicotine is an anti-oxidant? it’s a jumpy cousin to the fruit!
angusm

Farmers in the developing world use water in which cigarette butts have been soaked as a pesticide. The nicotine and other gunk leaks out to create a brew that kills or repels insects.

Of course it may also render food crops toxic to humans, but hey, those are the breaks. Something that cigarette smokers might like to think about anyway.
- octopod
  
  that’s great news, I think the cost of individuals mailing their cigarette butts to the third world is perhaps prohibitive, but, oh, the joy on their faces on opening the parcel. so maybe, if oxfam were to take them as donations, I’d be up for that.
Szwagier

As one of the dying breed of smokers, I heartily approve of this.
Anonymous

Nyah-hah! DuMaurier, Export A.

Canadian ashtray!