22nd Century Group will provide Greenbutts with manufacturing space at its Mocksville, North Carolina, USA, NASCO manufacturing facility and with NASCO staff to operate the equipment for a new cigarette filter solution.
Greenbutts offers a patented technology to replace single-use, plastic-based filters currently used in tobacco products with water-soluble, fully biodegradable filter solutions.
“With an estimated 6 trillion manufactured every year, plastic-based cigarette butts are the most abundant form of plastic waste worldwide,” said 22nd Century Group chairman and CEO Larry Firestone in a statement.
“Adding to that, an estimated 65 percent are littered, making them the world’s single most littered item. Unfortunately, the cellulose acetate plastics used in conventional cigarette butts takes decades to biodegrade, resulting in toxic waste that is harmful to ecosystems and wildlife, especially aquatic ecosystems. Greenbutts provides a simple, nontoxic, 100 percent biodegradable, plant-based and water-dispersing solution that is free of plastic and harmful chemicals while providing the same smoking experience as current filters.
“Under this new multiyear agreement, 22nd Century Group will provide the manufacturing space and support needed to produce sample product to allow Greenbutts to pursue FDA approval, with the mutual goal thereafter of expanding to full commercial production.
“We see this as an exciting new innovation and disruptor that could be used in both our VLN reduced-nicotine content cigarettes, the first and only combustible cigarette to receive an FDA harm reduction authorization, and in our CMO business for other conventional cigarette brands as well, where advanced discussions about potential use in cigarette products are already underway.”
