Fifteen Adapted Technology Work Skills students from Mount Baker Secondary School built 24 canisters that will be located throughout the City of Cranbrook for cigarette butt collection during the Tamarack Centre’s Butt Out, Butt In campaign.

Under the direction of teacher Paul Knipe along with eight educational assistants, the students learned how to create caps for the cylinder, weld on latches and paint the holders for the canisters. The students work on a community project each semester to help them understand the importance of volunteering and giving back to the community at large.  This project not only raises their awareness about cigarette butt waste but it allows them to develop important skills which they can use when they leave school and enter the work world.

Tamarack Centre is launching a city-wide cigarette waste clean-up effort to help keep the butts from entering into the ground and in waterways and also to keep wildlife from ingesting harmful chemicals and waste products. Tamarack is asking smokers to dispose their butts in the canisters in order to keep them off the ground. The cylinders are located throughout Cranbrook and larger receptacles will be located on the Tamarack Centre property.

The Centre hopes to collect 250 lbs. of cigarette waste by the end of fall. The butts will be sent to a company in Ontario, TerraCycle, that will recycle them into pallets and other items such as park benches and flowerpots.

Home Hardware generously donated the materials to the Adapted Technology Work Skills class so that they could make the canisters.

For more info visit Tamarack Centre’s website.

Tamarack Centre

Article Share