Tennessee Nonprofit Wins Another Award for Recycling Efforts at Dollywood Theme Park

After another year of successful recycling, the non-profit group behind the recycling project at Dollywood has earned its second award.

Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful (KTnRB) was awarded the Keep America Beautiful 2023 National Innovation Award for its cigarette litter prevention project at the Dollywood theme park. This program has been able to recycle 500,000 cigarette butts in Dollywood since 2021, plus the theme park is the first in the world to recycle the plastic found in every collected cigarette butt on its property.

“Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful is proud to work with Dollywood on a project that fosters a non-traditional approach to recycling as well as protecting our waterways,” said Kathleen Gibi, KTnRB Executive Director. “Dollywood continues to immerse its efforts in giving back to the community and we’re so grateful to their staff as well as our collaborating partners who have made this trailblazing initiative possible.”

Once cigarette butt recyclable boxes are full, the materials are sent off for recycling through TerraCycle. TerraCycle recycles the microplastics from the cigarette butts, turning them into two park benches for Dollywood.

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