With a large bag in his hand, 26-year-old Julian Melser “combs” a beach Tel Aviv and picks up the cigarette butts one by one.
The Israeli celebrates every day on World Earth Day collecting buttocks and selling “pocket ashtrays”, as he describes them, to smokers to prevent them from contaminating the coast.
“I am here to protect the world. It burns me in my soul, it burns me in my bones, my eyes burn when I see rubbish on the beachHe explains.
In fact, as he says, in this way he makes a living since during the summer months he earns about 2,500 to 3,300 euros a month from the sale of pocket ashtrays for almost five euros.
The Tel Aviv resident has been doing this job for the past three years, having started making works of art from the cigarette butts he had collected and then finding a way to recycle his “booty”.
Putting in bags the bags full of cigarette butts, Melser sends them by mail to NoButts, Ireland, which exports their filters for reuse, according to Reuters and the Athens News Agency.
He estimates that along with other members of his volunteer team at Israel have collected about one million cigarette butts.
On its website, NoButts says that Cigarette filters are “the most toxic disposable plastics on the planet”. It is estimated that around six trillion cigarette butts are thrown away each year around the world.
“It is extremely important because cigarettes harm nature, they harm the beach and I love the beach, it is my home,” says Melser, describing his campaign.
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