Ecocompatible container for the recycling of cigarette butts

Abstract

An ecocompatible container for recycling cigarette butts is constituted by a cylinder including an openable upper cover, a base and an intermediate portion which houses a common hopper in external communication with ashtrays through which the cigarette butts are introduced, wherein via the hopper, the butts are introduced into a screening basket with balls, in which the rotation of the screening basket allows, by mutual impact and friction of the balls, crushing the cigarette butts and hence effectively separating the organic portion, i.e. the filter paper and the residual tobacco that fall by gravity through holes into an underlying suitable collection container, from the resistant, fibrous portion constituted only by the filters of the cigarettes which, when sucked by a small suction motor, will fall into an underlying filter accumulation chamber.

Claims

1. An ecocompatible container for the recycling of cigarette butts, constituted by a cylinder comprising an openable upper cover, an intermediate portion housing internal devices and a base fixed to the ground, the internal devices inside of the intermediate portion comprising a common hopper, a conveying screw, a plurality of ashtrays, a collection container, a small suction motor, a filter accumulation chamber, and a rotating screening basket including a plurality of balls, wherein the common hopper is present on an upper part of said intermediate portion with off-centered lower hole, the upper part of which enters into external communication with at least two openings, constituting the ashtrays, obtained in the upper part of said intermediate portion and through which the cigarette butts or that which remains of a cigarette after its use are introduced, wherein the off-centered lower hole directly introduces the cigarette butts of said hopper, in the screw placed horizontally and driven by a small motor of the hopper, wherein an operation of said screw, carried out at predetermined time intervals, ensures that the cigarette butts present in said hopper, is introduced, by means of an opening obtained on a side of said screening basket, into the screening basket, wherein said screening basket is constituted by a totally perforated hollow cylinder capable of constituting by means of a plurality of holes the screening of a substance to be separated, wherein the rotation of said screening basket will move the balls contained and the relative cigarette butts, allowing by means of mutual impact and friction a crushing of said cigarette butts and hence an effective separation of a delicate portion of said cigarette butts, from a resistant and fibrous portion constituted only by cigarette filters, wherein the delicate portion, when it reaches a suitable mincing size will be forced by a pressure exerted by the balls to pass through the holes of the screening basket and falling by gravity will be accumulated in the underlying collection container, wherein once a passage through the holes is completed, always maintaining the rotation of the screening basket activated, a suction of the cigarette filters will occur by means of a driving of the small suction motor, wherein said cigarette filters will be sucked into a superolateral opening of said screening basket and directed into a duct and wherein said sucked cigarette filters will fall, being accumulated in the underlying filter accumulation chamber.

2. The ecocompatible container according to claim 1, wherein said cigarette filters sucked by means of the driving of the small suction motor are first introduced in a compaction chamber directly underneath the duct, wherein said compaction chamber is constituted by a common compactor, capable of compacting said cigarette filters and of forming parallelepiped-shaped sandwiches thereof, and wherein said parallelepiped-shaped sandwiches are introduced and accumulated in a container placed in the underlying aforesaid filter accumulation chamber.

3. The ecocompatible container according to claim 2, wherein said collection container will be sporadically and easily extracted and emptied by an assigned personnel, by opening a first door obtained on a lower part of the intermediate portion and wherein said container of the filter accumulation chamber will be, in completely safe conditions, sporadically and easily extracted and emptied by the assigned personnel by opening a second door obtained on the lower part of the intermediate portion.

4. The ecocompatible container according to claim 2, wherein it comprises a connection to a power grid capable of supplying power to a common electronic circuit unit in turn capable of suitably controlling, activating for pre-established periods of various electrical devices, wherein said various electrical devices are represented at least by the small motor of the hopper, by a small motor of the screening basket, by the small suction motor and by electrical device activating the compaction chamber.

5. The ecocompatible container according to claim 1, wherein it is power supplied by an optoelectronic device composed of photovoltaic cells capable of converting incident solar energy into electrical energy and wherein electric current accumulators of the optoelectronic device are housed in the base.

6. The ecocompatible container according to claim 1, wherein the openable upper cover is locked by common tamper-proof devices and wherein an opening of said openable upper cover allows an assigned personnel to inspect, verify and manually operate on the internal devices.

7. The ecocompatible container according to claim 1, wherein an external shape of the ecocompatible container simulating a lit cigarette, with the base representing portion of a filter, with the openable upper cover representing a lit tobacco portion and with the intermediate portion representing a rod of the cigarette.

8. The ecocompatible container according to claim 1, wherein constituent materials of the ecocompatible container can comprises those of metallic type, or polymers of plastic type and wherein said plastic polymer materials or metallic materials can comprise those having galvanized external finish and/or having painted external finish and/or having plasticized external finish.

9. The ecocompatible container according to claim 1, wherein the diameter of the ecocompatible container is comprised in an interval between 140 cm and 40 cm, and the height of the ecocompatible container is comprised in an interval between 170 cm and 100 cm.

10. The ecocompatible container according to claim 1, wherein the balls contained in the screening basket have calibrated weight, surface area and size in order to allow, in the cigarette butt, the separation of an organic portion constituted by residual tobacco and filter paper from a special portion constituted only by the cigarette filter.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

(1) The previous advantages, as well as other advantages and characteristics of the present invention, will be illustrated with reference to the enclosed figures, which are to be considered as mere non-limiting and non-binding example for the purpose of the present patent application, in which:

(2) FIG. 1 is a top perspective view of the ecocompatible container according to the present invention;

(3) FIG. 2 is a sectioned front view of the inventive ecocompatible container;

(4) FIG. 3 is a sectioned plan view of the inventive ecocompatible container;

(5) FIG. 4 is an axonometric view of only the rotary basket of the ball mill relative to the inventive ecocompatible container;

(6) FIG. 5 is a sectioned front view of a further embodiment with the compactor chamber relative to the inventive ecocompatible container;

(7) FIG. 6 is a perspective view of an alternative embodiment of the inventive ecocompatible container.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION

(8) It is wished to underline that hereinbelow, for exemplifying and non-limiting purposes, only some of the possible embodiments of the present invention will be illustrated, it being possible to describe many other embodiments thereof on the basis of the particular identified technical solutions.

(9) As shown in FIG. 1, such inventive ecocompatible container for the recycling of cigarette butts is constituted overall by a cylinder comprising an openable upper cover 300 locked by common tamper-proof devices (not shown) and capable of allowing the inspection, verification and manual operation on the various constituent internal devices, by the intermediate portion 100 housing the internal devices and by the base 200 fixed to the ground.

(10) As seen in FIGS. 2 and 3, inside said intermediate portion 100, a common hopper 110 is present on the upper part with off-centered lower hole 115, the upper part of which enters into external communication with at least two openings, constituting the ashtrays 119, obtained on the top part of said intermediate portion 100 and through which the cigarette butts or that which remains of a cigarette after its use are introduced, in other words the filter together with the filter paper and the residual tobacco. The off-centered lower hole 115 directly introduces the contents of said hopper 110, i.e. the cigarette butts, into the screw 120 placed horizontally and driven by the small motor of the hopper 125 by means of a suitable belt (not shown). The operation of said screw 120, carried out at specific time intervals, ensures that the material present in said hopper 110, i.e. the cigarette butts, is introduced into the ball mill by means of the opening 137 (FIG. 4) obtained on the side of the screening basket 130. As can be observed in detail in FIG. 4, said ball mill is mainly constituted by a screening basket 130 obtained by a totally perforated hollow cylinder capable of constituting, by means of said holes 139, the screen for the substance to be separated. Indeed, specifically, the rotation of said screening basket 130 by means of the small motor of the basket 138 will move the balls 131 having specially calibrated weight, surface area and size with the relative cigarette butts, allowing by means of mutual impact and friction the crushing of said cigarette butts. Such crushing and rubbing, carried out on said cigarette butts by the aforesaid balls 131, will allow effectively separating the delicate portion i.e. the organic portion that is the filter paper and the residual tobacco from the resistant fibrous portion constituted only by the cigarette filters. Therefore, the aforesaid organic portion, when a suitable mincing size has been attained, will be forced by the pressure exerted by the aforesaid balls 131 to pass through the holes 139 of the aforesaid screening basket 130 and will fall by gravity, being collected in the underlying suitable collection container 150. Said collection container 150 will be sporadically and easily extracted and emptied by the assigned personnel, by opening the door 155 obtained on the lower part of the intermediate portion 100. After a predetermined period useful for completing the passage through the holes 139, due to which it is assumed that the entire organic portion has entirely fallen into the underlying collection container 150, always maintaining the rotation of the screening basket 130 activated, the suction of the residual cigarette filters will occur by means of the driving of the small suction motor 140. Said cigarette filters will be sucked into the superolateral opening 134 of said screening basket 130 (FIG. 4) and directed into the duct 145 (FIG. 2) falling and hence being accumulated in the underlying filter accumulation chamber 160.

(11) A preferred embodiment of the invention shown in FIG. 5 and intended to obtain an even more eco-efficient device, provides that said sucked cigarette filters first fall into a compaction chamber 190 directly underneath the aforesaid duct 145. Said compaction chamber 190 is constituted by a common compactor existing on the market, capable of compacting said cigarette filters and to preferably form parallelepiped-shaped sandwiches thereof, in turn introduced and accumulated in the container of the underlying aforesaid filter accumulation chamber 160.

(12) Said filter accumulation chamber 160 will be, in completely safe conditions, sporadically and easily extracted and emptied by the assigned personnel, by opening the door 165 obtained on the lower part of the intermediate portion 100. Once the compaction of the cigarette filters has occurred, these will have greatly reduced volume and hence proportionally the transfer to the environment of the harmful substances absorbed in the filters themselves will be minimized. In addition, the handling of the same filters by the assigned collection personnel will be greatly facilitated, together with the sending to the set recycling plants. Furthermore, the previous step of separating the organic portion from the special portion will greatly facilitate all the recycling operations at the plants dedicated for such purpose.

(13) Of course, the inventive structure will require a connection to the power grid, capable of supplying power to the suitable common electronic circuit unit (not shown) in turn capable of suitably controlling, activating for pre-established periods the various electrical devices constituting said inventive ecocompatible container, i.e. the various small electric motors such as the small motor of the hopper 125, the small motor of the basket 138, the small suction motor 140 and the possible electrical device activating the compaction chamber 190. Nevertheless, the present invention provides for further alternative embodiments corresponding with several variants of its structure and shape of its components. Indeed, a further aspect, alongside all the technical solutions described up to now, but of particular importance in the attainment of the invention, is underlined in those cases where it is not desired or it is not possible to have a connection to the power grid. In particular, as shown in FIG. 6, said inventive ecocompatible container is equipped with an optoelectronic device 400 composed of photovoltaic cells capable of converting incident solar energy into electrical energy. More specifically, said photovoltaic cells will have a surface area such to create a power capable of satisfying the electrical requirements of the entire inventive apparatus. Still more particularly, it is provided that the necessary electric current accumulators of the optoelectronic device 400 are housed in the base 200.

(14) Of course, the data provided herein is merely exemplifying and absolutely non-limiting of the range of the present invention, since it serves to extend and not limit the contents of the present invention. Therefore, different, obvious modifications could clearly be made by the man skilled in the art to the preceding exemplifying and non-limiting embodiments described with reference to the figures, without involving an extension beyond the inventive concept that exclusively underlies the following dependent claims.