The Ecoclope, a cigarette butts box

Yassine Chorfi-Witte, won the Lépine competition, 10 years ago, with his cigarette box project. Today, this native of Nancy wants to industrialize his invention called Ecoclope.

The streets of every city in the world are littered with cigarette butts. These cigarette remains, with their filter, are thrown carelessly on the sidewalks or in the gutters. They are carried by rainwater to rivers and then to the sea. Tens of millions of tonnes of cigarette butts pollute nature each year. In France, an estimated 80 billion cigarette butts end up in the sewer every year. For the city of Paris alone, around 350 tonnes of cigarette butts.
However, these little pieces of cigarettes contain particularly harmful chemical components. Like nicotine, ethylphenol, but also heavy metals and radio-nucleics. In short, their toxicity is such that a single cigarette butt can pollute 500 liters of water. The impact on the environment and therefore on flora and fauna is a real economic, ecological and health disaster.

Winner of the Lépine competition

Anxious to remedy this state of affairs, Yassine Chorfi-Witte, a native of Nancy, had the bright idea of ​​inventing a small cigarette butt box. It was in 2010. His invention earned him a gold medal at the famous Lépine competition.
The idea is very simple. It’s a box in which you can put cigarettes and a tub to collect cigarette butts after smoking a cigarette. Since then, Yassine Chorfi-Witte has decided to move on to the realization phase of his invention. He therefore created an association, called Ecoclope, with the aim of industrializing his cigarette butt box.

The Pocket Ecoclope

The Ecoclope of 2020 no longer looks like that of 2010. It is now a small rectangular box with a sliding ashtray that can hold 13 cigarettes and therefore 13 butts. Inside, a small electronic lighter and pockets for recycling cigarette butts, all in cool shells of different colors. In short, an object that is both practical and decorative.
The Ecoclope association is organizing a Clean Cities Day on Saturday 13 June 2020 to draw public attention to respect for the environment. Departure, at 2 p.m. from Place Stanislas in Nancy. Wearing a mask will be compulsory.

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