<p>Julian Melcer is cleaning up a Tel Aviv beach, one cigarette butt at a time.</p>.<p>Prowling the shore, a large plastic bag in hand, the 26-year-old Israeli treats every day like Earth Day, picking up butts and selling small pouches he calls pocket ashtrays to smokers to deter them from littering.</p>.<p>"I'm here to protect the world," he said. "It's burning in my soul, it's burning in my bones, it's burning in my eyes when I see trash on the beach."</p>.<p>Melcer said it's also a living, earning him about $3,000 to $4,000 a month during the summer from the sale of the pocket ashtrays for $6 each.</p>.<p>The Tel Aviv resident has been at it for three years, starting out by creating artwork from butts he collected and then finding a way to recycle his large haul.</p>.<p>Stuffing butt-filled plastic bags into boxes, Melcer mails them to the NoButts organisation in Ireland, which extracts their plastic filters for repurposing.</p>.<p>He estimates that he and others in his volunteer group in Israel have picked up about one million butts.</p>.<p>On its website, NoButts says cigarette filters are the "most toxic single-use plastic on the planet". It estimates that some six trillion butts are littered worldwide every year.</p>.<p>"It's super important because cigarettes hurt nature, they hurt the beach, and I love the beach - it's my home," Melcer said about his campaign. </p>
<p>Julian Melcer is cleaning up a Tel Aviv beach, one cigarette butt at a time.</p>.<p>Prowling the shore, a large plastic bag in hand, the 26-year-old Israeli treats every day like Earth Day, picking up butts and selling small pouches he calls pocket ashtrays to smokers to deter them from littering.</p>.<p>"I'm here to protect the world," he said. "It's burning in my soul, it's burning in my bones, it's burning in my eyes when I see trash on the beach."</p>.<p>Melcer said it's also a living, earning him about $3,000 to $4,000 a month during the summer from the sale of the pocket ashtrays for $6 each.</p>.<p>The Tel Aviv resident has been at it for three years, starting out by creating artwork from butts he collected and then finding a way to recycle his large haul.</p>.<p>Stuffing butt-filled plastic bags into boxes, Melcer mails them to the NoButts organisation in Ireland, which extracts their plastic filters for repurposing.</p>.<p>He estimates that he and others in his volunteer group in Israel have picked up about one million butts.</p>.<p>On its website, NoButts says cigarette filters are the "most toxic single-use plastic on the planet". It estimates that some six trillion butts are littered worldwide every year.</p>.<p>"It's super important because cigarettes hurt nature, they hurt the beach, and I love the beach - it's my home," Melcer said about his campaign. </p>