The City of Ventura, in conjunction with the Surfrider Foundation, recently installed a bench near the Ventura Pier. While this may look like an ordinary bench, it is made up of thousands of recycled cigarette butts, which would have continued to litter and be a threat to marine and wildlife if not collected. The Surfrider Foundation volunteers to maintain and empty 76 ashcans located throughout the city and sends them to company TerraCycle, where they are melted down into plastic pellets and turned into various products.
The first ashcans were installed in late 2016, and to date, Surfrider has sent 250,000 butts to TerraCycle.
