Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful will partner with the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission to implement the Cigarette Litter Prevention Program (CLPP) at up to 17 service plazas and interchange access buildings across the state with a $20,000 grant received from Keep America Beautiful.

The CLPP program will begin with a scan, or physical count, of cigarette butts and other tobacco-related products littering each service plaza. Ash receptacles will then be installed at the entrances to buildings and other transition points. Two additional scans will be performed, one midway through the year and one at the end of the program. The effectiveness of the program will be measured by comparing the pre-program and post-program scans. Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful will provide educational messaging about the consequences of cigarette litter and other tobacco-related litter; the messages will be displayed at participating service plazas.

Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful has a partnership with TerraCycle to recycle and compost the cigarette butt waste that is collected. Cigarettes collected through CLPP are shipped to TerraCycle, where the various materials that make up a cigarette are separated and processed. The filters are melted into hard plastic that can be remolded to make new recycled industrial products, such as plastic pallets. The residual tobacco and paper are separated out and composted in a specialized process.

Cigarette butts that are thrown on the ground can contaminate soil and ground water with chemicals and heavy metals, and they can fatally impact birds, animals, and marine life, which often mistake them for food. Cigarette filters, made of cellulose acetate, never fully disappear from the environment.

To find out more about CLPP, visit http://www.keeppabeautiful.org and choose Programs, then Cigarette Litter Prevention or contact Michelle Dunn, program coordinator at Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful, at mdunn@keeppabeautiful.org.