From Cigarettes to Ashtrays

Long description

We started a project called the WasteBar (https://wastebar.nl), in India and the Netherlands, where at various events you can buy a snack or drink from our mobile bar and pay with litter. A huge success and lots of media attention. The project raises awareness on the impacts of street litter and offers circular solutions simultaneously. Cigarette butts are the most common overlooked (and polluting) litter, so we decided to tackle this waste stream first. Through WasteBar events we have already collected over 40,000 cigarettes. Circular artist Angelina Kumar (www.angelinakumar.com) discovered, through research and small lab tests, that mycelium (fungi) can feed on cigarette filters, making them biodegradable. Now we want to design and develop the first larger artistic public ashtray bins made with collected cigarette butts and mycelium. These ashtray bins will be sold to local government, companies and institutes and placed in public spaces. The goal is that they will be used to collect cigarette filters again, which then continue to serve as raw material for the creation of more ashtray bins. The second part of our project is to research and design the first open source distribution design circular business manual kits for making ashtrays and products with cigarettesbutts and mycelium. This project offers an accessible circular solution to the public and the local cities thus completing the circle! 

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