Abstract: In order to reclaim tobacco from break-out rods, defective cigarettes and tobacco dust produced during the running of PROTOS-M5 cigarette maker, an automatic waste tobacco reclaiming device was designed on the basis of time difference. The device was mainly composed of a PLC, solenoid valves, pneumatic cylinders, throttle valves and waste tobacco containers. Depending on the time difference when the waste tobacco was generated, the defective cigarette conveying belt, break-out rod conveying belt and flap deflector were controlled automatically via PLC program, at the same time the waste tobacco was separated from other materials. The results showed that the recycling rate of cut tobacco raised by 12 percentage points, or 0.41 kg/h, or 2 363 kg/year per cigarette maker.