The Tennessee Recycling Coalition presented its ‘2023 Nonprofit Recycler of the Year Award’ to Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful at their annual conference held in Gatlinburg, Tenn. in August.
LEFT TO RIGHT: Amber Greene, Executive Director of the Tennessee Recycling Coalition; Edmond McDavis, Executive Director for the Tennessee Delta Alliance (who worked on the project when he was with Keep Tennessee Beautiful); Kathleen Gibi, Executive Director of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful; Monica Kizer, Communications Director at Keep Tennessee Beautiful, and Lincoln Young, President of the Tennessee Recycling Coalition

Bobby Johnson, Grounds Manager at Dollywood and implementer of the theme park’s Cigarette Recycling Program, poses with Kathleen Gibi, Executive Director for Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful, both holding the awards recently awarded by the Tennessee Recycling Coalition.

Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful (KTNRB) was just named ‘2023 Nonprofit Recycler of the Year’ by the Tennessee Recycling Coalition for its cigarette litter prevention partnership with Dollywood. Since the project launched at Dollywood in 2021, the program has led to the plastic getting recycled from approximately 350,000 cigarette butts.

The project also made Dollywood the first theme park in the world to recycle the plastic from every cigarette butt collected in guest-facing receptacles on its property.

“We’re so proud of this honor, more than anything because of the commitment from Dollywood and the other supporting partners who worked to ensure that this trailblazing collaboration would protect the Tennessee River watershed from the harmful effects cigarette litter,” said Kathleen Gibi, KTNRB Executive Director. “Taking the effort to the next step of recycling the plastic from otherwise discarded cigarette waste makes it all the more impactful and is yet the latest example of Dollywood’s reputation of working toward the greater good.”

KTNRB was able to provide Dollywood with 26 art-wrapped cigarette receptacles through a collaboration of grants and sponsorships from Keep America Beautiful, Keep Tennessee Beautiful, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and the American Eagle Foundation.

There are 16 standing cigarette receptacles available for public use within the Dollywood theme park in addition to the ten receptacles available to employees behind the scenes. Pictured in this photo are the standing receptacles just before they were installed at the designated smoking areas throughout Dollywood.

A box of cigarette butts collected at Dollywood before they were shipped to Terracycle to be recycled.

TerraCycle, an international recycling company, covers the cost of shipping the collected cigarette butts to their facility so that the plastic microfibers in the cigarette filters can be recycled into outdoor plastic furniture. Two park benches donated by TerraCycle and made from the recycled cigarette plastic are now installed at Dollywood near the theme park’s bald eagle exhibit.

In addition to working with Dollywood on the Cigarette Litter Prevention Program, KTNRB also has 800 art-wrapped cigarette receptacles installed at marinas, campgrounds, and tourism sites in all seven states of the Tennessee River watershed.

For more information about joining Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful’s Cigarette Litter Prevention Program or to join litter cleanup efforts on the Tennessee River watershed, please visit www.KeepTNRiverBeautiful.org.