Sustainability to Wear: Glasses Made from Cigarette Butts

Cigarette butts, among the most widespread and harmful waste in the world, may soon have an unexpected second life: becoming frames for eyeglasses. Making this possible is Essequadro, a historic company from Ariano Irpino with over fifty years of expertise in artisanal eyewear, which has patented an innovative process to recover the cellulose acetate contained in cigarette filters and reuse it in eyewear production.

The project, called “Oscar – Cigarette Glasses”, was born almost by chance during a business trip and has turned into a circular economy challenge that brings together business, research, and education. In collaboration with the “G. De Gruttola” Institute of Ariano Irpino and the CNR Institute for Polymers, Composites and Biomaterials, Essequadro is developing a system capable of transforming a hazardous waste into a high value-added industrial resource.

Cigarette butts not only deface cities and landscapes but also release persistent and toxic microplastics into marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Capturing and transforming them into regenerated raw material would mean reducing a global environmental problem — with 6 billion cigarettes smoked every day worldwide — while at the same time opening new opportunities for the green manufacturing sector.

The project is currently in the prototype phase and hindered by a regulatory gap: cigarette butts are classified as unsorted waste, and there are still no clear rules for their collection and treatment. However, Essequadro looks ahead and continues to invest in research, envisioning an integrated recycling chain that transforms a polluting waste into a symbol of sustainability and style.