Israeli cleans up beach one cigarette butt at a time

SOUNDBITE) (English) JULIAN MELCER, 26-YEAR-OLD ENVIRONMENTAL ENTREPRENEUR, SAYING:

"My name is Julian Melcer, I've been collecting cigarette butts from the beaches in Israel for about three years now. It's super important because cigarettes hurt the nature, they hurt the beach and I love the beach, it's my home. I just try to save the world."

Location: Tel Aviv, Israel

Melcer picks up cigarette butts at a Tel Aviv beach every morning

and creates artwork from the butts he collected

(SOUNDBITE) (English) JULIAN MELCER, 26-YEAR-OLD ENVIRONMENTAL ENTREPRENEUR, SAYING:

"It's what I am, it's what I am. I'm here to protect the world. Of course it's burning, 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 and I can't really think of anything to calm me down other than to go to the beach, clean it up, talk to the people and offer them a solution."

He also sells pocket ashtrays to smokers to deter them from littering

It earns him about $3,000 to $4,000 a month during the summer

(SOUNDBITE) (English) JULIAN MELCER, 26-YEAR-OLD ENVIRONMENTAL ENTREPRENEUR, SAYING:

"So it's kind of crazy, when I first started this, it was like three years ago, zero connection to work, zero connection to money. I just set to create my own value and this project, I knew how important it was for me and I knew that I could sell pocket ashtrays / I never thought it would turn out to this beautiful project where I can actually pay people to clean the beach and raise awareness and touch the smokers.