Kickstart: Recycling 9 to 5

Dollywood, the theme park that celebrates musician and icon Dolly Parton and her hometown of Pigeon Forge, Tenn., has just unveiled benches made using plastic recycled from the filters on hundreds of thousands of cigarette butts, with Dollywood's 26 specially designed receptacles providing the biggest source of those butts.

Dollywood worked with environmental group Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful (KTNRB), Keep Tennessee Beautiful, the Tennessee Valley Authority and American Eagle Foundation on the project.

The park is on the Pigeon River, which flows into the Tennessee River. Cigarette butts are consistently among the top items collected during beach cleanups, so collecting them early is important, KTNRB said in a news release on the project.

Keep Tennessee Beautiful and Keep America Beautiful donated the collection receptacles placed within designated smoking sections, and Dollywood created custom signage so they would blend in with the rest of the park. Since 2019, Dollywood has recycled the plastic from more than 250,000 cigarette butts.

"Dollywood has been recognized as one of the most beautiful theme parks in the world due, in part, to the beauty of East Tennessee," said Carol Agee, Dollywood senior manager of community affairs and strategic alliances. "It is vital for us to maintain this beauty by caring for our natural surroundings. Through our partnership with KTNRB, we are able to take hundreds of thousands of cigarette butts and remove them from the waste stream."

While trade shows in North America and Europe have been getting back on track, COVID-19 shutdowns are prompting a postponement of Utech Asia/PU China 2022.

The show, sponsored by our sister publication Urethanes Technology International, had been set for Sept. 5-7 in Guangzhou, China.

China has continued major restrictions to travel through 2022 even as other regions reopened.

New dates for the trade show will be announced later.

Jackson, Miss., has had water problems for years because of aging infrastructure that has broken down multiple times. When floods overwhelmed a water treatment plant earlier this week, conditions grew even worse with state and local leaders alike saying the city would not have enough water pressure to fight fires or even regularly flush toilets.

Now even supplies of bottled water are running low.

A National Guard distribution site at Jackson's Hawkins Field Airport on Aug. 30 ended early when Guard members ran through 700 cases of donated bottles, CNN reported. Gov. Tate Reeves has asked for a federal emergency declaration to free up money to support the community.

City and state leaders are making arrangements for other water distribution sites, while the Mississippi Rapid Response Coalition, made up of more than 30 organizations, hopes to raise $2 million to help distribute clean water.