EcoZeal

You see it every time you pull up to a stop light; hundreds, if not thousands of dirty cigarette butts all over the side of the road. Talk about a non eco-friendly way to be. Did you know it takes these dirty little buggers 12 years just to begin to break down and that they never fully break down?

Fortunately for the Earth and for us all there is a Chilean eco-friendly fashion designer named Alexandra Guerrero who had the foresight to see a good thing where most see bad. She has developed a way to take those nasty discarded cigarette butts and recycle them with a mixture of wool to come up with a new wool-like fabric to make clothing out of. She got the idea while attending college as she was noticing all the butts that were thrown out on the streets near by. She then began to ponder what she could use them for.

The cigarette butts go through a lengthy cleaning and salvage process which results in a textile that has 20 percent used cigarette butts in it. So far, Guerrero has salvaged and re-used over 5,000 cigarette butts from the Chilean streets.

The fashions are not only green, but they actually look really cool and EcoZeal.com hopes that others will follow the innovative spirit of Guerrero and look for ways to make something good out of something bad.

Read more about this initiative and see some photos of the cigarette butt clothing here.